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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




Orax M. Eobekts. 



A DESCRIPTION OF TEXAS, 



ITS ADVANTAGES AND RESOURCES, 



-WITH- 



SOME ACCOUNT OF THEIR DEVELOPMENT, 



PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE, 



*^. ■' A plain tale you' 7'e told, — 

Very plain to be 7oritten ?" 
A. " Yes, indeed it is, — ivken written. 



O. M. ROBERTS, 



PRESENT GOVERNOR OF TEXAS 




ST. LOUIS, MO.: 

GILBERT b60K CO., 
1881. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, 

By The Gilbert Book Co. 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



F 20^ \ 



DEDICATION. 

This little work is respectfully dedicated to the Texan far- 
mers, upon whose labors, rightly directed, the material pros- 
perity of Texas must largely depend, and whose intelligence 
and integrity in public affairs must be relied on to sustain 
good government in this country ; on the principle that the 
civilization capable of republican, local self-government begins 
and ends with the plow. 

The Author. 



P R E F A C E. 

Austin, Texas, August loth, 1881. 

To THE Publisher : — 

You request me to write some personal reminiscences as a 
preface or introduction to the work which you are pubHshing 
for me. 

Nothing appears to me as being more appropriate than an 
explanation of how it happened that I, a small farmer, a law- 
yer and a judge, most of the time, during a residence of nearly 
forty years in Texas, should have collected the materials for 
such a work, while busily engaged in my ordinary pursuits. 
Having settled in San Augustine in eastern Texas in 1 84 1 , I en- 
tered upon my professional pursuits in the manner then com- 
mon in the country. That was then the legal and political 
center of a large portion of the surrounding country^. The 
district courts, (corresponding to the circuit courts in other 
states) were then held during the spring and fall months of 
the year. It was not unusual when the times for holding them 
arrived, to see a dozen lawyers with the judge, mount their 
horses, with saddle-bags, blanket, and tie-rope, and, thus 
equipped, start on their journey around the district, which then 
embraced many counties spreading over a large scope of 
country. As some of them would drop off, and not go around 
the whole circuit, others would fill their places, so that about 
an equal number of traveling lawyers joined to the local bar, 
would be met with at nearly every court. This mode of prac- 
tice was kept up until the late civil war, after which the mem- 
bers of the bar became more and more localized in their prac- 
tice. 



IV PREFACE. 

At once adopting the habit of following the circuit in which 
I located, I traveled over a wide scope of country, from the 
Sabine to the Trinity Rivers, a distance of one hundred and 
fifty miles. We encountered the usual hardships of travel in 
a neW: and sparsely settled country, from rains and storms, 
often having to swim creeks and the sloos of rivers. Upon 
one occasion, being the youngest man in the party, I had the 
honor of being selected to swim the Neches River on horse- 
back to bring over the ferry-boat from the opposite side, 
where it was fastened. On such trips we often met with 
Methodist itinerant preachers, going to or coming from confer- 
ence, and we aided each other in crossing streams, they com- 
ing up on one side and we on the other. The universal hospi- 
tality of the settlers was a solacing relief to all of our fatigues 
of travel. Night or day their doors were thrown open, and a 
hearty welcome was given to share whatever they had, usually 
without money and without price. Their humble fare, season- 
ed with their unobtrusive kindness, was far more refreshing 
than the artistic dishes of modern hotels. I was never re- 
fused admittance for the night but once. Traveling with a 
young friend in a section of the country where the houses were 
from five to ten miles apart, just before dark, when a misting 
norther was just coming up, we called at a lone cabin and 
asked the man of the house to let us stay all night. He re- 
plied that he could not take us in, because his wife was sick. 
I answered that I could probably give assistance, having medi- 
cines along with me which I usually carried. He then said 
he had no feed for our horses. I replied that we could tie 
them up, and feed the next day ; shelter from the coming 
storm was what we wanted. He answered, well, you can't stay. 
I asked him how far it was to the next house, and what about 
the road to get there. He said it was a plain road of six 
miles to the next house, where a Norwegian lived, that by 
taking a left-hand path just before we got to a creek, we could 
cross it just above the ford without swimming, as we would 
have to do if we crossed at the ford, and that we could reach the 
creek before it got full dark. We lost no time in getting to 
the creek and crossing it as directed ; and putting on our 
blankets, and adjusting our baggage, not then being able to 
see our hands before us, we put our horses in the road side 



PREFACE. V 

by side, gave them the bridle-reins, and went in a sweeping 
trot the six miles, where we were hospitably entertained ; and 
then for the iirst and only time in my life, I slept on one 
feather bed, with another for a covering. 

At that early day there was much — much in the character 
and habits of the people of all classes and occupations ; — 
much in the varied characteristics of the country, then seen al- 
most in a state of Nature, being occupied only by villages and 
farms, small and far between each other, — much in the varied 
productions to the extent then exhibited, — much in the history 
and institutions of the country to arrest the attention and 
excite the investigations of an inquiring mind. The lawyers 
with whom I associated were, for the most part, men of great 
intellectual vigor, and of distinctive characters, no two of 
them being alike in their leading attributes. So with other 
citizens, a strong individuality and a general intelligence in 
common sense matters characterized them. Men of no class 
seemed to be built on any common pattern in anything, but 
each stood out for himself, a unit in the association of people 
here thrown together from different localities. There were 
men who had settled in the country as far back as 1822, and 
had passed through and participated in all of the revolutions 
that had transpired, some of them as officers in the army, and 
others as officers in civil life. Most of them were familiar 
with the stirring events of the past, and had leisure and will- 
ingness to freely communicate them. The old settlers knew 
each other often for hundreds of miles distant. Thus the op- 
portunity was furnished to learn much of the past history, the 
institutions and the men of Texas. 

Though the region of country over which I first traveled 
was small in extent, compared to all of the territory of Texas, 
it presented a great variety, in almost everything, in the dif- 
ferent parts of it, — different in its soils, its growth of trees 
shrubs, vines, and grasses, as well as in its streams of water* 
its farm, garden and orchard products. Having some learning 
in the natural sciences, I very soon began to notice and fix in 
my mind the facts constituting those marked differences, and, 
without any specific object in so doing, commenced to in- 
vestigate the reasons therefor. In a few years my business 
led me to extend these researches from Red River to the Gulf 



VI PREFACE. 

coast, and as far west as Fort Worth and Austin, and after- 
wards to San Antonio in the west. Throughout allthecoun- 
try«over which I passed I discovered these differences, in the 
condition of things in different sections, to have largely in- 
creased, which furnished a still wider field for my investiga- 
tion. To this was added the reading of everything I could 
find, and conversations with well-informed persons, calculated 
to give me information about other sections of the state over 
which I had not traveled. One ver>^ great advantage of trav- 
eling over the country then, was, that it was done on horse- 
back, or in stages, which gave much greater opportunities for 
observing all of the peculiarities of the different sections of 
the country, than the present mode of traveling by railroads. 
There never having been, as yet, butaver>^ limited geological 
survey, or, indeed, a survey of any kind, by which accurate 
information could be obtained on many subjects treated of, I 
have had to rely, in this work, on the best information that 
I could otherwise obtain. 

Having collected and preserved many facts pertaining to 
Texas, and being engaged in teaching a law class in the years 
of 1868, 1869, and 1870, I delivered to the students ' occa- 
sional lectures, embracing much of what is here presented, 
with a view to give those young gentlemen a good general 
knowledge of the varied characteristics and vast resources of 
the state in which they expected to spend their lives. Since 
then it has been put in the present shape, and is now publish- 
ed to give such general information as it contains, and es- 
pecially to stimulate others, who may have more time and 
better opportunites, to correct whatever may have been wrong- 
fully presented, and to give a more exact and extensive view 
of the extraordinary qualities and vast resources of Texas. 

The Author. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER I.— Delay in Settling. 

Canses of the delay in settling Texas. Want of ports of entry favorable to tlie 
landing of civilized immigrants from Europe. Remoteness from the Centres 
of CiTilization, in Mexico and United States. 

Labor the .Source of National Wealth. 

Causes of delay in developing its material industries. Inhabited by tribes of 
Indians, then by Mexicans ; and then by xVnglo- Americans untler unfavorable 
circumstances. 

Rapid progress after annexation to the United States. 

The great loss from the result of the civil war. To individual, more than to 
national wealth, dependent upon the investment of surplus labor in slaves 
set free. The precarious condition of a peculiar property, held at the will 
of public opinion. 

A partial enumeration of the great and varied resources of Texas ; adequate fur 
an empire, — a stimulus to elevate her people. 

Land donations, and other benefits conferred, to encourage immigration, produc- 
tion, commerce and education. 

Stands on a surer foundation than ever before, in respect to individual prosperity. 

GHAPTER II. — Physical Geography. 

Its position in the continent, its relations to the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky and 
Alleghany ledges of mountains, the Mississippi river and valley, and to the 
great plains of the west; the influence of all these upon the climate of the 
different parts of Texas. 

The dimness and warmth of the west, and the moisture of the east, explained ; the 
isothermal lines indicated. « 

The droughts ; two rainy seasons ; and also the northers, with their causes and 
effects. 

The principal elements of production ; moisture, heat, pulverization capacity, and 
mineral fertilization of the soil, appropriately combined ; each of the four 
giving character to the four grand natural divisions of Texas — with the pecu- 
liar effects of each there manifested in its productions. 

Prairies and heavy forests, with the causes that produced them. 

The value, as a portion of the national wealth, of Texas, of its virgin soils and 
subsoils, and a mode of approximately estimating them. 

The study of the various peculiarities of each section lays th*.- foundation for a 
general knowledge on the subject of production, upon which the prosperity of 
Texas greatly depends. 

vii 



viii Table of Contents. 



CHAPTER III. — Great Variety of Productions. 

Great variety of natural and artificial productions exhibited in passing through 
Texas on a line from east to west, and from south to north, and its extent in 
latitude and longitude. 

Its division by regular belts of country, with the characteristics of each ; the 
Level Gulf prairie belt ; the Long-leaf Pine belt ; the Magnolia belt ; the Red- 
Land belt ; the Black Jack belt ; the Short-leaf Pine district ; the Black, Limy 
Prairie belt; the Mountains and Cross-timbers ; the High Grazing Plains and 
Valleys; the Staked Plain. '•'Llano Estacado." 

The effects upon bottom lands of rivers that flow from and through these belts. 



CHAPTER IV. — Comparison of the Different Belts. 

A comparison of the different belts of country, with reference to the productions 
in each, and with the reasons therefor. 

The tendency to increase the fruit-bearing in trees and crops, as the wood-pro- 
ducing capacity diminishes, and to what extent, as exhibited in the different 
belts of country that are found in Texas. 

Bottom lands in Texas. How they are formed, and the different kinds in the dif- 
ferent rivers and other streams in Texas. Their qualities, and how they may, 
or may not, be redeemed from overflows. When overflows are necessary, and 
when not to preserve their fertility. 

Benefits of generalization and classification in the description of a country. 



CHAPTER V. — Natural Sources of Wealth. 

Natural sources of wealth in Texas in its minerals and timljtrs ; and trees, shrubs, 
plants and flowers, as objects of utility and ornament. 

Coal and coal oil. A vein of lignite from the Sabine River t.) I'.ie Rio Grande 
and coal in different places. 

Copper in northern Texas. Gold and silver— yhe tradition c ;):icerniag them, tS;c. 
Iron abounding in the east and found in the west. Rocks for buildings, 
fences, and other purposes, found in almost evc-y region. 

Gypsum, clay, marl and sand. 

Fertility of soil largely dependent on character of the sub-soils, — interesting ex- 
ceptions in parts of eastern Texas and the reason therefor. 

Wood and fencing. Post-oak — the great fencing timber of the prairies, &c. 
Red-oak and Black-oak in the east. Cedar — its localities and use for fencing. 
Pine timber in south-eastern Texas, — its amount and the advantages connected 
with it. Cypress-timber in same locality. Hickory and white-oak in the east 
for wagons and carriages. BoisD'Arc timber in northecn Texas its uses and 
value. Live-oak of the south and west, its boundary and extent. Pecan, Us 
locality and value. Musquite of the prairies. 

Hedges great profit of must be made of a plant or shrub, '["he I'rickly Pear 
its uses as a hedge and otherwise. The Papjiaw and persimmon— their uses. 
Other trees, plants and flowers. 

Cordage — Bear grass in eastern and middle Texas good for ropes, &c., its uses. 
Medicmal trees and plants, large number specified. Wood-growing — the 
Chma tree and tree of Paradise. The valuable lessons taught by the forests 
of a country. 



Table of Contents. ix 

CHAPTER VI. — Natural Wealth as Found in its Wa- 
ters. 

The natural wealth of Texas, as found in its waters. For common use — their 
quality in different parts of the country. Mineral waters of medicinal vir- 
tues. The sour lake, and Lampassas springs, &c. Salines in the east and 
in the west. Water power — very great in tlie west and some in the east 
For navigation — extent and character of. Coast canal — its advantages and 
practicability. For fish, oysters, &c., very good. 

Wild game. Buffalo and Elk disappeared. Deer, Turkeys, Prairie hens, Par- 
tridges, &c., Bears, Panthers, Wolves, &c., determine the natural fertility of a 
country — the reason. Other animals, and some beautiful birds. 

Atmospheric benefits — in wind power, in health, in production of crops, and in 
increased capacity to labor physically and intellectually. 
« Canes and reeds, as food for stock and for market particularly in the south and 
east 

Grasses. For natural pastures. The musquite grass in the west ; the milo giass 
in the east, and others. Wliy pasturage is so beneficial to a country, how it 
may be secured, and the immense profit it is and has been to western Texas. 
The reason why dry countries are the best for grazing. The pests of Texas.- 
Cotton worms, grasshoppers, &c. 

CHAPTER VH. — Cultivation of Crops. 

Modes of cultivation of crops in Texas to obtain the advantages, and to relieve 
against the disadvantages, peculiar to the Texas climates and soils. Period3 
of the growth of different crops. How the excessive wet of spring and 
dryness of sumrner are to be guarded against 

The late frosts, their causes and effects, and how relieved against both in cr.ops 
and orchard fruits. Some examples of successful farming in raising com, 
cotton and potatoes, and the principles evolved therefrom. Adaptation of 
the different parts of the state to different crops and orchard fruits. 

Orchards, their value and adaptation to, and mode of planting, pruning, and cul- 
tivating with the soils best adapted to them, and how the disadvantages of 
each section are to be remedied, and advantages of our climate turned to 
profit. Grapes, native and cultivated in different parts, adaptation to, uses of. 

Horses and cattle, modes of raising in the past and present Arts of horsenvanship 
and of throwing the rope, necessary accomplishment, how attained and per- 
formed. Mexican saddle. 

Swine. Modes of raising, past and present. Managed with hog-dogs, and how. 
Dependence on the masts, and how benefits obtained. Improved stock. 

Sheep. Large section adapted to, — adaptation established. Profits of their best 
locality in a delightful countiy. 

CHAPTER Vni.— Modes of Travel. 

M«des of transportation and travel — past and present, — in Texas. 
Trains of pack mules, how managed. 

Wagons, and horse and ox teams, how managed. The great benefits of the ox 
teams to Texas, in cheapness of cost and expense. 



Table of Contents. 



CHAPTER VIII. — Modes of Travel. — Concluded. 

The two-horse wagons introduced since the war, and why. 

Travel on horsebaci'C, in stages, and in private carriages and buggies, — rough 
roads. 

Railroads — their extent and sudden construction, their great and varied advantages 
to Texas at present, and glowing prospects in the future. Must be the com- 
mon mode of transportation throughout the civilized world, and why. 

Steam-power and telegraph revolutionizing the industrial pursuits, and conse- 
quently the moral, social and political status of mankind, and raising them 
to a higher plane of civilization. Other anterior stages considered with their 
moving causes; discoveries of use of metals, gunpowder and printing press 
The mainspring of civilization developed. 

Manufactories — advantages of, and prospect of increasing, &c. 

Individual wealth — modes of honorably acquiring it in Texas heretofore and 
now. 



CHAPTER I. 

Causes of the Delay in Settling Texas. 



Causes of the delay in settling Texas. Want of ports of entry favorable to the 
landing of civilized immigrants from Europe. Remoteness from the Centres 
of Civilization, in Mexico and United States. 

Labor the Source of National Wealth. 

Causes of delay in developing its material industries. Inhabited by tribes of 
Indians, then by Mexicans ; and then by Anglo-Americans under unfavorable 
circumstances. 

Rapid progress after annexation to the United States. 

The great loss from the result of the civil war. To individual, more than to 
national wealth, dependent upon the investment of surplus labor in slaves 
set free. The precarious condition of a peculiar property, held at the will 
of public opinion. 

A partial enumeration of the great and varied resources of Texas ; adequate for 
an empire, — a stimulus to elevate her people. 

Land donations, and other benefits conferred, to encourage immigration, produc- 
tion, commerce and education. 

Stands on a surer foundation than ever before, in respect to individual prosperity. 

Texas is a country of remarkable characteristics. Its varied 
resources are adequate to a self-sustaining empire. It em- 
braces within its borders all of the productions of the temper- 
ate zone, and some of those of the tropics. It has almost 
every variety of fertile soils, of valuable timbers, minerals, 
waters and climates (except the permanently cold). It has a 
vast plain, resting on the Gulf of Mexico, and extending from 
the coast to the base of the mountains, and cross-timbers, at an 
altidude of about six hundred feet ; above which rises rapidly 
rugged hills, and broad prairie plains, traversed by rich val- 
leys, ascending north-westwardly to the " Staked Plain," 
which is a table-land, about four thousand feet higli, 
connected with the Rocky mountains. In every part of ks 
broad area there lies some source of wealth, and often many 
of them, awaiting the touch of labor to spring into form and 
value. 

Why, then, it may well be asked, has Texas so long 
remained a new country, sparsely settled, and but little deve'l- 
2 17 



1 8 DELAY IN SETTLING. 

Want of ports — Remoteness — Class of Inhabitants. 

oped ? It is not because it was so long unknown, for San 
Antonio and, perhaps, also, Nacogdoches, were settled in the 
early part of the last century, the same year that Philadelphia 
was founded. These towns were merely military out-posts of 
occupation, for a hundred years or more, with very few settle- 
ments around them. A reason for the long deferred settle- 
ment of this country is found in the fact, that there was no 
good port of entry on the Gulf Coast, from the mouth of the 
Mississippi River to Vera Cruz, wltich includes our whole 
sea front. Civilization was imported into America in immi- 
grant ships from Europe, that naturally sought good ports of 
entry for landing, from which the foreign population was 
spread out in the interior, and the savages driven back. 
Thus, while the shores of the Atlantic were teeming with a 
civilized population on one side, and great cities were rising 
up over the central part of Mexico on the other, the Texas 
coast furnished a hiding place for pirates and freebooters, and 
her broad plains were roamed over, for the most part, by the 
Comanches and other savage tribes of native Indians. 

Texas has, therefore, ever heretofore been a country remote 
from the centers of civilization, equally so when part of Mex- 
ico, while an independent Republic, and when part of the 
Un-ited States. 

Another reason for the long deferred development of 
Texas is found in the character, habits and condition of the 
people, who have, from time to time, inhabited it. 

That this may be properly appreciated, it must be premised, 
that labor is the foundation of property, which, whatever its 
species, form or value, over and above the bounties of nature, 
is but the result, the fruit and representative of so much 
labor. Permanent national wealth is, for the most part, the 
current values of labor, fixed upon the earth in the shape of 
profitable improvements perpetuated so as to produce values, 
for the present and future generations. Thus, we may say, 
that Great Britain has within it a hundred millions of people 
at work now, though more than two-thirds of them are dead. 
Their labor, while ftving, was perpetuated in accumulated 
and solid shape, and is now producing values, in aid of those 
wko are now living there. 



DELAY IN SETTLING. 19 



Inhabited by Indians, then by Mexicans. 



For centuries Texas was the home of the roving Comanches, 
and other savage tribes of Indians. They neither plowed 
nor built, and perpetuated no labor for their posterity. The 
grand-sire and grand-son went through the same round of 
undivided labor, which was mainiy to hunt something to eat, 
steal horses, and to kill their erremies. Being expelled, they 
have left behind them no vestige of their long occupation, 
except that which is to be found in the names of a few 
mountain peaks and water-courses. They are careful, how- 
ever, to keep us reminded of their existence, by their savage 
depredations upon our frontier people. This, however, can- 
not last long ; for this very savage nature, which causes them 
to strike back as they recede before a superior race, draws 
upon them their gradual, though ultimate, extermination. 
This is simply one of the processes at work, by which the 
higher order of man is, and %vill continue to be, forced in 
self-defence, willing or not, to take possession of, and use the 
earth everywhere, carrying out the inexorable and perpetu- 
ally operating law of races, and of nations, — to elevate or die. 
Give the Comanche his horse, his bow, his buffalo meat, and 
his pecans, and all else, — clothes, houses, farms, cattle, rail- 
roads, factories, ships, cannons, are to him but "Vanity and 
vexation of Spirit." 

A characteristic remark is reported of a Comanche chief 
who was taken to Washington City, and there shown the 
works and wonders of civilization. He said, in substance, 
that he was not surprised that white men could make all such 
things, but the wonder with him was, how they first could 
think of wanting them. 

The Mexicans during a hundred years, under the Spanish 
monarchy, and afterwards under the Mexican Republic, made 
some progress in settling a small part of Texas, and in dis- 
puting its dominion with the Comanches and other tribes. 
They were, for the most part, a race of native Indians of cop- 
per color, slightly intermixed with Span-ish blood. They 
were partial, in their industrial pursuits, to hunting for game, 
and to the care of herds of cattle, sheep and horses ; and 
their arts were, in the main, confined to a. level \tith their occu- 
pations. Their cultivation of the earth was very limited in 



20 DELAY IN SETTLING. 

Struggle between the Indians and Mexicans. 



quantity, and rude in manner. Their mode of developing 
a new country was by laying off a town with a large tract of 
land around it for commons, establishing therein a military 
post and a Catholic church, and inviting settlers to the town, 
by giving them lots therein, and lands in large tracts in the 
surrounding country for the establishment of stock farms, 
that were the abodes of the herdsmen, who, as occasion 
might require, took protection in the town under the military, 
a^d also paid their visits there for religious devotion with the 
priest. And the town was also the center of attraction for 
their dances, cock and bull-fights, when the town arrived 
at such proportions as to afford the luxury of these amuse- 
ments. 

With their standard of manhood, and arts of war, the 
struggle with the wild savages was long, and often doubtful 
in maintaining their position in the country. That difficulty, 
perhaps, contributed largely to their invitation of the Anglo- 
Americans to share with them their lands and dangers ; 
which, commencing formally in 1821, resulted in establishing 
numerous colonies for the settlement of white men. 

The antagonism of races soon commenced, and was kept 
up from various grounds, until the Anglo-Americans, by the 
aid of some noble Mexicans, remained masters of the field, 
and established in Texas an independent Republic in 1836. 

The Mexicans are now reduced to small numbers in a few 
localities. They have left behind them one stone-house in 
eastern Texas ; (at Nacogdoches, which is there called "the 
stone-house") one town in western Texas, San Antonio, now a 
delightful city, the Bagdad of America ; also in the west, the 
wreck of some stone-built Missions of the olden time, and one 
mule path, called formerly the "King's highway," which may 
yet be traced, by its deep, narrow beaten track in many places, 
between the Sabine River and the Rio Grande. It runs by 
San Augustine and Nacogdoches, and by Bas'trop and San 
Antonio, and has been used to designate the boundaries of 
Colonial grants by the former governments. [See Map i.] 
They have left with us the a-rt of throwing a rope in catching 
animals, and some other arts of stock raising and training, 
includtng their saddle-trees, spurs, hats, and quirts. ..They 



DELAY IN SETTLING. 21 

Anglo-Americans come to Texas as Colonists. 

have left their names of rivers, and creeks, and of some 
counties and towns. They have left their land measures, 
such as varas, labors, and leagues, their land-titles, marital 
rights, in modified form, and other laws, most of which they 
derived from the Spanish Civil Law. And they have left, 
lingering in the memory of many an old Texan, the universal 
Christian charity and humanity of the Mexican women, who 
were ever ready to feed, to comfort, and to plead for mercy 
towards the Texan prisoner in time of war. 

The Anglo-Americans, when permitted to come to Texas, 
as colonists, and otherwise, adopted a very different mode of 
settling a new country. They went out boldly, spreading 
themselves over the country, irrespective of military posts, or 
priests, or towns, and with guns in hand, confronted the dan- 
gers of the Indian scalping knife and tomahawk ; formed set- 
tlements, built cabins, opened and tilled farms, and gathered 
around them their stocks of hogs, sheep, cattle and horses. 
Towns arose, as incidental to their settlements, as trade and 
commerce required, and not as the primary object, as was 
the case in the Mexican plan. Churches and school-houses 
were erected in the settlements and towns, and a different 
order of civilization dawned upon the fair face of Texas ; 
agriculture, being, as it has always been everywhere, the 
foundation and mainspring of all elevated civilization ; be- 
cause it fixes upon the earth and perpetuates labor more 
permanently than any other mode of life ; and makes it 
necessary to build roads, open rivers, erect towns, promote 
commerce, and ultimately manufactories; all of which accu- 
mulate and perpetuate labor in some shape or other for fu- 
ture use. 

Notwithstanding this change, however, but little progress 
was made in substantial material development, until the an- 
nexation of Texas to the United States ; for two reasons : 
first, because most of the early settlers occupied themselves 
in acquiring lands, rather than in improving them ; and, 
secondly, because property was not sufficiently secured to 
encourage the investment of great labor upon it. 

For fifteen years, from annexation to the commencement 
of the late civil war in 1861, the material development of 



2Z DELAY IN SETTLING. 

Rapid Progress after annexation to the United States. 

Texas was indeed very great. During that period there was 
a large influx of population and wealth, mostly in the shape 
of slave-labor. Forests fell, prairies were plowed up, dwell- 
ings, gin-houses, mills, sugar-houses, churches, school-houses, 
villages, towns, and cities, all sprung up, as if by magic ; 
and the lively energy of the new-comer infused increased 
force and activity in the habits of the old settler, or drove 
him to the frontier to take care of his vast herds of cattle 
and horses. The two races, white and black, worked to- 
gether in harmony, the relative status being fixed by law, 
and by traditional custom. The superior directed and took 
care of the inferior. Bounteous crops sprang from the virgin 
soil, and general prosperity gladdened the land, strewing 
peace and plenty broadcast over the whole country. 

A vast amount of the labor that had been accumulated and 
perpetuated, and constituted individual and national wealth 
up to the end of that period, was lost by the freedom of the 
negroes at the end of the war. To understand the full force 
of this remark, it must be considered, that the Southern 
people, for a century and a half previously, had been largely 
investing their surplus earnings from labor of all sorts in 
negro slaves ; that after the cessation of the African slave 
trade, (which was about i8o8,) and after the full operation 
of the prospective emancipation laws of the Northern States, 
which sent their slaves down upon us to be purchased, the 
increase of that sort of labor could only be supplied by nat- 
ural increase. Hence, a gradual increase in the price of it 
began and continued, so that the same sort of a negro slave 
that was worth from ;^i50 to ;^2 5o in 1808, was worth from 
;^iooo to ;?I500 in i860. A farm stocked with negroes was 
a safe investment, and managed with but little money-making 
ability ; and for that reason, as well as from confirmed habit, 
capital and industry' sought continually that direction. This 
investment worked in a circle, ending in procuring more and 
more labor by the purchase of more slaves ; which was usu- 
ally the measure in estimating individual wealth. But little 
was left from this process of accumulation, for permanent 
improvements, either by separate or co-operative industries. 
The investment in slaves was generally greater m amount 



> 

z 
o 

O 




DELAY IN SETTLING. 23 

Progress not so great as in the Northern States. 

than that in houses, farms, or other permanent improvements. 
While the people of the North, during the present century, 
were receiving thousands of able-bodied laboring immigrants 
from Europe annually, whom they had not raised, or bought, 
(which was the same as millions of money cast upon them by 
donation,) and while they, with such aid, were opening canals, 
rivers and harbors, building railroads, ships, factories, and 
colleges, and making fine farms and farm residences, 
rearing great cities, and thereby fastening upon the soil, and 
perpetuating for the use of future generations their surplus 
labor, the people of the South were tramping around the 
circle of the tread-mill, — buying more slaves, (increasing in 
price,) to make more sugar, cotton, rice, and tobacco, and 
making more of these things to buy more slaves ; — until their 
slaves represented perhaps one-half of the piled-up and per- 
petuated labor of themselves and ancestors for one hundred 
and fifty years ; the whole of which wealth, as to them indi- 
vidually, a blast of breath from the North blew away as chaff. 
They had invested their surplus labor upon the foundation of 
the stability of public opinion in a Republic, and lost it; 
whereas, had it been placed in valuable improvements, fixed 
upon the soil, they, individually, might have become bank- 
rupt, and their labor still have been preserved as national 
wealth. The loss to national wealth is not so great as to 
individual, because the negroes are still left as laborers. 
Being less efficiently directed, much that had been attained 
in agricultural improvements has gone to waste for the want 
of sufficient labor. 

While the views here presented will enable it to be under- 
stood why Texas had made no greater advance in the per- 
manent improvements, common to other countries differently 
situated, they will serve to prepare the way for a comprehension 
of the condition of things in Texas, under the new era of 
industrial pursuits, as well as of public affairs, upon which we 
have entered since the war. 

We have now fairly entered upon the experiment of two 
races of people, as different as white and black, living to- 
gether in the same country, upon recognized terms of legal 
and political equality, and with the same inequality, in the 



24 DELAY IN SETTLING. 

Experiment of two races of people. 



personal and social relations, and in all matters outside of the 
law as it existed formerly, while the blacks were slaves and 
the whites masters. It is well that it is so, and is likely so 
to continue in Texas; not as matter of prejudice, but as mat- 
ter of humane policy. No two such distinct races ever did, 
or ever can be reasonably expected to live together, on terms 
of perfect equality in every respect, otherwise than upon the 
miraculous supposition that they respectively could regard 
each other as truly and exactly equal in every respect. It is 
likely to continue as it is here, because hundreds of thous- 
ands of white people, from the other states and from Europe, 
are pouring into Texas, by which the importance of the 
blacks, as a class, either for labor or otherwise, is diminish- 
ing day by day ; and in a few years they will be relatively 
lost amidst the busy millions of whites that will spread them- 
selves over our broad domain. We have advanced far enough, 
in the first ten years since the negroes were freed, to perceive 
a most marked change in the direction of our industrial pur- 
suits, in our habits of life, and in the general face of society. 
The industry of the whites has been quickened, and better 
directed towards comfort and utility in the country, as well 
as in the towns. Country residences and pursuits are less 
desired than formerly, and are sought and used more as an 
employment, and less as an investment. The greater number 
of heads of families have added immensely to trade and com- 
merce, by which towns and cities have grown rapidly, at- 
tracting more and more the population and capital of the 
country. More rail-roads and other public works have come 
into existence. We are learning the advantages of co-opera- 
tive labor, skill, and capital. Already we are beginning to 
fasten upon the soil, in more permanent shape, the surplus 
earnings of labor, and necessarily to call into requisition more 
of the varied resources of our country, which have as yet but 
only commenced to be discovered and developed. It is only 
by approximate comparison that we can begin to appreciate 
the vast resources of Texas. She has a sugar and sea-island 
cotton region, as large as those of Louisiana ; a cotton region 
as large as Alabama ; a wheat region as large as Ohio, that 
can put flour in the market a month sooner ; a grazing region 



DELAY IN SETTLING. 25 

Great and varied resources of Texas. 

(that sends out fat beef and mutton in the dead of winter) 
seven hundred miles long, and over two hundred miles wide. 
Injiian corn, field and garden vegetables are produced well 
in most parts of Texas. In nearly every part some sorts of 
orchard fruits and grapes grow finely, embracing oranges, 
figs, peaches, pears, plums, apples, and both native and 
foreign grapes. It has considerable sections of country well 
adapted to rice, Cuba-tobacco, and common tobacco. It has 
an area equal to one hundred miles square of long-leaf pine, 
and considerable quantities of short leaf pine, and also a 
great quantity of valuable forest trees for timber, for fencing, 
building and machinery, and furniture. 

She has in different parts of the State large quantities of 
rock, for building, for lime and other purposes. She abounds 
in iron and other valuable minerals. She has probably the 
largest gypsum bed in the world, and lignite and stone-coal 
in abundance. 

Her gulf coast and rivers abound in fine fish. In the ex- 
treme west, where the dryness of the climate renders crop- 
ping precarious, there are bold mountain streams for irriga- 
gation. We have a generally temperate climate, subject to 
considerable diversity, and, though changeable, it is generally 
healthful, and agreeable, and in some portions of the State 
extremely so. 

Our condition is rapidly being changed in another impor- 
tant respect. Instead of a remote country (the "Province of 
Texas," at one time, and part of the Trans-Mississippi De- 
partment at another) it is getting to be in the direct passage 
of the commerce of the great north-west to the Gulf, and be- 
fore long may be traversed by two great high-ways to the 
Pacific Coast, over which must pass some of the most pre- 
cious productions in the commerce of the world. 

It is said that a country makes the people. If so, it must be 
because its resources appeal to them for development, and 
shape and limit their character. Upon this standard of pro- 
gress, the people of Texas have a grand field of operations, 
a Herculean task in the mastery of it, and a great future in 
prospect for realization. 

The governments, under which Texas has existed, have 



26 DELAY IN SETTLING. 

Development encouraged by donations of land. 

done much to encourage the increase of its population, the 
settlement, and the development of the resources of the 
country. By the general colonization law of Mexico of 1824, 
a league of land (4428 acres) was granted to settlers. The 
Republic of Texas increased it to a league and labor (4506 
acres). From, that time to the present, donations of land to 
actual settlers have almost continually been made, in differ- 
ent quantities, (1280, 640, 320, 160 acres), the last of which 
is still given as pre-emptions (160 acres). Since annexation 
to the United States the Legislature has appropriated money 
and lands to clear out and improve the navigation of the 
rivers, and has chartered numerous railroads, giving them a 
liberal bounty in lands (usually 16 sections to the mile), and 
has loaned to some of them, of the school fund, ^6,000 to the 
mile ; has chartered numerous manufacturing and mining 
companies ; and has lately given a bounty in lands to encour- 
age irrigating canals. It also passed a law organizing and 
supporting a geological corps, for the discovery and exhibition 
of the agricultural, as w^ell as of the mineral resources of the 
state, which is still in operation. It has caused to be built, 
near Bryon City, an agricultural and mechanical college, which 
has been put in operation. A general law has been passed 
for the institution and regulation of agricultural and mechani- 
cal associations. We have had, also, an Immigration De- 
partment, with its officers, which has lately been abolished. 

As early as 1839, the Congress of the Republic of Texas 
donated fifty leagues of land to build two universities, which 
lands have been well located, and are valuable, to which one 
million of acres have since been added. At, and shortly after, 
the same time, four leagues of land were donated to each 
county for the building of an Academy in each, which lands 
have generally been well located. 

In the donation of land to railroads provision was made 
for surveying and setting apart therewith, alternate sections 
for the support of a Common School System, which, if care- 
fully managed, will produce at no distant day, a magnificent 
fund for that purpose. 

With all these advantages, and resources, some of which 
have here been merely glanced at, rather than explained, 



DELAY IN SETTLING. 27 

Development encouraged by donations of land. 

Texas, in all that concerns the secure and solid prosperity of 
its citizens, in their various industries, stands upon a firmer 
foundation than ever before, and with a government at home 
in harmony with the views and interests of the great mass of 
its people, it is now securely on the high-road to a glowing 
prosperity, commensurate with her great extent. 



CHAPTER II. 
Physical Geography of Texas. 



Its position in the continent, its relations to the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky and 
Alleghany ledges of mountains, the Mississippi river and valley, and to the 
great plains of the west; the influence of all these upon the climate of the 
different parts of Texas. 

The dryness and warmth of the west, and the moisture of the east, explained ; the 
isothermal lines indicated. 

The droughts ; two rainy seasons ; and also the northers, with their causes and 
effects. 

The principal elements of production ; moisture, heat, pulverization capacity, and 
mineral fertilization of the soil, appropriately combined ; each of the four 
giving character to the four grand natural divisions of Texas — with the pecu- 
liar effects of each there manifested in its productions. 

Prairies and heavy forests, with the causes that produced them. 

The value, as a portion of the national wealth, of Texas, of its virgin soils and 
subsoils, and a mode of approximately estimating them. 

The study of the various peculiarities of each section lays the foundation for a 
general knowledge on the subject of production, upon which the prosperity of 
Texas greatly depends. 

The first thing to be learned about Texas, in order to un- 
derstand its cHmate and productions, is its Physical Geogra- 
phy. This is dependent upon its central locality between the 
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, its relation to the ranges of 
mountains on this continent, and the Mexican Gulf, and to 
the Mississippi valley and river. 

The North American Continent exhibits a high continuous 
ledge of mountains, (from 6,QOO to 16,000 feet high,) near the 
western edge, called the Rocky Mountains ; with a vast ex- 
panse in their course from north to south, and a less elevated, 
and less expansive ledge, (from 2,000 to 6,000 feet high,) 
called the Alleghany or Appalachian chain of mountains near 
the eastern edge from north-east to south-west ; leaving be- 
tween them a trough-like depression constituting three great 
basins, to wit, that of the Mississippi valley, that of the great 
lakes, (Superior, Huron, Erie, &c.) and that of Hudson's Bay. 

28 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS. 29 



Its position in the Continent. 



This is shown by the elevatioHs in that trough above the 
level of the water of the Gulf, and Atlantic, as follows ; at the 
mouth of the Arkansas on the Mississippi River it is 82 feet, 
at St. Louis 375 feet, and at the central part of the State of 
Ohio 1,000 feet; Lake Erie 565 feet, Lake Superior 623 feet; 
the land at the head of the Mississippi River 2,000 feet. 
That River runs from north to south, in the bottom of the 
southern portion of this trough, and is the dividing line, from 
which the ascent commences east and west, in forming the 
two great ledges of mountains of the continent. 

Texas belongs to the elevation connected with the western 
ledge of mountains, and occupies the corner between the 
Gulf Basin and tlmt of the Mississippi valley, — rising from 
both, by a double ascent, to the "Staked Plain" of the north- 
west, which is 4,000 feet high or over, and is itself but a spur 
of the Rocky Mountains in the shape of a high table plain, 
coming down from the region of Pike's peak (about 13,000 
feet high,) in Colorado. Up-the-Country in Texas is gener- 
ally to the north-west, as indicated by most of its rivers, 
which rise up in, or in the direction of, the "Staked Plain," 
and flow usually in a zigzag course towards the Mississippi 
River and to the Gulf, as may be plainly seen in the course 
of the Sabine, Trinity, Brazos and Colorado Rivers. Thus 
Texas is made to consist of high rolling, and often rugged, 
plains descending from the "Staked Plain," south and east, 
to the "mountains" and "cross-timbers," whose base is eleva- 
ted about 600 feet above the Gulf; and of the western part of 
the great "Plain of the Gulf slope," which extends from the 
Rio Grande to central Florida, and from Memphis and Little 
Rock to the Gulf; and which is the great cotton and sugar 
region of the United States. 

This trough-like shape of the continent tends to diverge 
the course of the north-eastern surface-current of atmosphere, 
in the cycle of the temperate zo-ne, and directs it northwardly 
in a deep, strong current, from the Gulf of Mexico up the 
deep valley of the Mifisisippi River, which direction is also 
aided by the valleys of the rivers west of the Mississippi, run- 
ning south-east, up which the current presses in proportion 
to their depth and breadth. 



30 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS. 



Dryness of the west and moisture of the east. 



This divergence of the atmospheric current makes our dry, 
hot winds of drought in summer appear to come from due 
south off of the Gulf; whereas, in fact, they come from arid 
regions west of the Gulf Generally, however, this current of 
atmosphere carries the moisture of the Gulf (the direction 
of the range of Alleghany Mountains not impeding it,) all 
over the eastern portion of North America, (filling the great 
northern lakes,) and making it one of the best watered and 
most productive regions in the world, of the same vast extent. 
Let a line be drawn from about the western margin of the 
Gulf northward to the Artie oCean, and all the country west 
of that line and the eastern ledges of the Rocky Mountains is 
a dry country, often approaching the condition of desert, 
mountains and plains, from which in its whole extent of 5,000 
miles in length, and 1,000 miles in average breadth, the regu- 
lar moisture is cut off by the snow mountains of Mexico. 
The regular north-east current of atmosphere from the Gulf 
misses it entirely, and the moisture from rain-fall of that vast 
portion of the continent is dependent upon the accidental 
and occasional drifts consequent upon atmospheric convul- 
sions, and upon the periodic vaccillation from east to west of 
the dividing line between the dry and the wet regions of the 
continent. (See Map No. i.) This dividing line, running 
through Texas from south to north, and being changeable by 
moving to the east and to the west in different years, or 
period of years, causes the most of her territory to be affect- 
ed by the pecuharities of each region in some measure St 
different and occasional periods. Hence, on both sides of 
that line for some distance we have periods of dry seasons, 
and others of wet seasons, just as the dry line, running north 
and south, may vaccillate to the east or the west, from its 
accustomed location near the center of the state. 

Still it may be said that the eastern portion of 
the state is safely within the well watered region, aad 
the western portion, on the Rio Grande, is in the dry 
region. These plains, or prairies, being for the most part 
devoid of forests of wood, are rendered still more 
dry on that account, as they are thereby more readily 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS. 31 

Isothermal lines. — Two rainy seasons. 



swept by the strong currents of wind from the south in the 
summer, and from the north-west in the winter. Their rapid 
ascent from the plain below, and their rolling and often 
abrupt outline, greatly tend to aid in keeping them dry by 
the facility of drainage. 

By these various causes the lines of latitude that mark 
similar degrees of temperature (called isothermal lines,) do 
not, in Texas, correspond with the ordinary lines of latitude ; 
but, on the contrary, after passing the middle of the state, in 
going westward, they turn north-west, by which the average 
summer heat of El Paso at 32 deg. N. L., on the Rio Grande, 
is as great (allowance being made for altitude,) as that at 
Brownsville, near the mouth of that river, which is only 26 
deg., N. L. (See Map No. i.) 

These isothermal lines bear northward in going west, not- 
withstanding the increasing altitude, mainly perhaps on ac- 
count of the increasing dryness of the atmosphere. 

When we have in summer a strong continuous current of 
air sweeping over Texas from south-west to north-east, (ap- 
parently coming from the south usually,) we are almost cer- 
tain to have a drought. And when in winter we have the 
slowly creeping warmth of the gulf stream, wafted north on 
the mainland from the gulf, so as to rarify the substratum of 
air, a norther breaks down suddenly from the high regions of 
the north-west, and sweeps down over all of our prairies, car- 
rying in its course to the gulf the stagnant miasma of the in- 
terior, and leaving in its place a dry, cool exhilarating at- 
mosphere. This excess of cold and heat, to which portions 
of the state are periodically subject, is much relieved by the 
dryness of the region most liable to it. For it is well known 
that the del-eterious or disagreeable effects of either cold or 
heat, upon animal or vegetable life, are greatly diminished, 
and frequently entirely obviated by extreme dr^'ness, and 
are proportionately increased by moisture. 

Texas may be said to be a dry country in the main, thougk 
we have what may be called two rainy seasons in the year, 
one in the spring, and one in the fall. Had we a line of 
high mountains, ranginfg east and west along our northern 
border, we might calculate on having an abundance of raia 



32 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS. 

No extravagant extremes of heat or cold. 

during all seasons of the year, as they have in North-Carolina 
and Virginia. For then the warm atmosphere teeming up 
from the gulf, freighted as it is with watery vapor which may 
be seen flying over us every morning in the dryest times, 
would meet with the cold air of the mountains, and cast down 
refreshing showers in summer. We have no such mountains, 
and, therefore, the watery vapors pass on northward until 
they reach the mountains of Arkansas, or Missouri, or still 
further, until they reach a latitude about the northern lakes, 
where the snow line above comes near enough to the surface 
to occasionally furnish the cold winds sufficient to produce 
rain, by which process the water of the Gulf is transferred 
to the northern lakes, and the country adjacent to them 
is furnished with good seasons. In the absence of such 
mountains, we must await the nearer approach of that snow 
line, driven down south towards us in the fall by winter, as it 
slowly creeps southward ; and then in the spring the gushing 
heat of the tropics, moving northward, drives a deluge of 
watery vapor on our skies before the chill of receding winter 
has entirely escaped to its northern home, and thereby casts 
down superabundant rains, which fill the earth deeply with a 
supply of moisture for summer, and give a liberal surplus to 
swollen streams, that carry it back in haste to the Gulf 

Occasionally, also, (but seldom when we need it,) a three 
days' wind from the east transports to us a chilling supply 
of water from the Atlantic ocean. 

Thus we have variety without any extravagant extremes 
in most of the territory oi" the state, — the heat of summer 
rarely exceeding 80 to 90 degrees, and the cold of winter 
never preventing out-door pleasure or labor for nK)re than 
one to three days at a time ; with a bright sunny sky over us 
nine-tenths of the year, and yet seasons sufficient to make 
labor highly remunerative in all parts of the country, when 
applied with proper discrimination, as to what each section is 
best adapted. This uniform moderate warmth, dryness and 
light of our sunny clime, not only tends to promote health 
and animation, but also gives to life a cheerful charm wliich 
old Texans can not fully appreciate, unless they should visit, 
particularity in the winter, some of those drizzly, dark, cold 
regions of the north-eastern portion of the continent. 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS. 33 

Philosophy of vegetable productions. 

To properly appreciate the adaptability of the different 
sections of Texas to their appropriate productions, it is neces- 
sary to understand something of the philosophy of vegetable 
productions, under the various conditions to which it is sub- 
ject, in different parts of the country. It is evident that the 
natural productions are very variant, though each may be 
excellent of its kind, dependent upon permanent causes. In 
artificial production of crops, those causes and their effects 
should be understood so as to point the way to the safe in- 
vestment of capital and labor. The causes that facilitate the 
growth of trees may prevent the growth and preservation of 
the grasses, and vice versa. That which produces wood-growth 
may not proportionally promote fruit-bearing on the wood. 
That which retards or kills growth in one place, fosters it in 
another. All these, and many more such phenomena, pre- 
vail in Texas, dependent upon permanent natural causes. 
Without going into any minute investigation at present, suf- 
fice it to say, that with all sorts of vegetation, and in all coun- 
tries, its existence and growth depend upon the combination, 
and the respective portions in the combination at any one 
locality, of four leading elements of production which are 
heat, moisture, pulverization capacity of the soil and mineral 
fertility of the soil and substratum of earth. 

These, in appropriate combination without excess or de- 
ficiency in any one, are the best possible conditions upon 
which excellent and durable production is attained. It 
often happens, however, that this is overlooked by the very 
superior excellence of one of these four qualities predominat- 
ing in a locality, to such an extent, as to greatly relieve 
against a striking deficiency or excess in one or more of the 
other three. Very great deficiency or excess in either one, 
however, will usually prevent or destroy vegetation. A 
mountain of perpetual snow cannot produce, because of a 
deficiency of heat ; whereas the deserts of Africa share the 
same fate from an excess of it. The same tropical heat in 
South America, where a refreshing shower of rain descends 
every day of summer, generates an exuberant growth of 
forests. 
3-* 



34 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS. 

Philosophy of vegetable productions. 

Vegetation cannot gain a fixed foot-hold in the wind-drift- 
ing sands of the desert plain owing to an excess of pulveriza- 
tion capacity, nor upon the hard rock, whatever may be its 
composition, from a deficiency of it. Excess of water pre- 
vents the chemical action in the earth which is necessary to 
furnish food for plants and trees, and a deficiency of it pro- 
duces the same effect. 

A good mineral fertilizer may be so in excess (as a bed of 
lime or gypsum, or ashes or sea-shell,) as to destroy or pre- 
vent vegetation. Indeed sameness in the ingredients of the 
soil and subsoil, of any sort, is inimical to the permanent 
growth of trees, as is strikingly illustrated in our deep, rich 
limy prairies of middle and northern Texas, as well as in our 
sand flats of eastern Texas. The greater the mixture of dif- 
ferent ingredients in the earth, the more favorable is its con- 
dition for permanent production. Now, it so happens that 
each one of these elements of production is peculiarly pre- 
dominant in four different sections of the state, and largely 
influences the production therein. Heat and dryness in the 
far west ; moisture in the south and east ; pulverization ca- 
pacity of the soil in a belt of country, reaching from near the 
north-east corner of the state nearly to Corpus Christi, em- 
bracing most of the clay, sand-stone and iron-ore region of 
eastern, middle and southern Texas, the central portion of 
which may be designated by Gilmer, Tyler, Palestine, and 
thence south-west; mineral fertility of the soil and in the 
sub-soil abounds pre-eminently in all the black, limy prairies 
from Sherman and Clarksville in the north, to and beyond 
Austin in the west, and in all the rolling plains and valleys 
west of that line as far out as ordinary crops can be made. 
(See Map No. 2.) 

The heat and dryness of the far west favor the growth and 
preservation of the grasses, and make it a vast grazing region 
that can well dispense with barns, or even with cutting and 
stacking, to preserve its hay. The moisture of the south and 
east are favorable to sugar, rice and cotton. 

The pulverization capacity of the interior timbered country, 
previously indicated, is peculiarly favorable to an average 
production of most crops common to the south, including 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS. 35 

Praries and heavy forests ; — the causes that produce them. 

corn, cotton, garden vegetables, orchards and vineyards. 
The mineral fertility of the black, limy prairie is peculiarly 
favorable to all of the cereals, as well as to cotton. Though 
the sections of country, subject each to these respective pecu- 
liarities, may not be marked out by any exact lines of bound- 
ary, and may often run into each other, and sometimes one 
partakes of the peculiar quality of the other ; still the marked 
characteristic of each section, as described, stands out in bold 
relief, so as not to be mistaken, when attention is called to it, 
as will be seen more prominently hereafter. In estimating 
the probable effects of any of these elements of production 
the altitude of the locality must be taken into account, in as 
much as it may affect both the dryness and warmth. Thus 
cotton will grow to great perfection in the low regions of 
Mississippi and Arkansas on or near the 35th deg. N, L., near 
Memphis ; wheras, near the same line of latitude in Ala- 
bama, Tennessee and Georgia in the high mountains 
it will scarcely mature at all. Indeed there is no certainty in its 
growth in an altitude over six hundred feet above the gulf, 
in any part of the south. 

A few reflections may be here added profitably, as it is 
thought. And first, if we have found the necessary condition 
of things, in the production of the growth of trees and plants 
why may we not by a process of reasoning backwards from 
the fixed premises, account as readily for the absence of 
trees on prairies, deserts, sea-marshes, steppes and other 
places that are found without them, which has seemed to 
geologists, and to others, so difficult a problem ? The rule, 
so far as it can be made into a set form of words, is, that in 
every prairie, desert or other place devoid of trees, or forests 
of trees, there is a deficiency or an excess of some one or 
more (usually several,) of these four elements of production, 
either permanently, or periodically, existing there to an ex- 
tent sufficient to prevent their generation and growth. 

It only requires a patient and searching investigation, upon 
the principles here suggested, to account for their existence 
everywhere they are found on the earth, whether of small or 
large area. Secondly, such is the variety of our productions, 
natural and artificial, and such is the variety of the causes 



36 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS. 

The wealth of Texas buried in her rich virgin soil. 

either favorable or inimical to them in the dififerent sections, 
that the study of them becomes the study of the industrial 
prosperity of the state in its great future. Thirdly, it may 
be well to contemplate, as what has gone before has prepared 
us to do, the national wealth of Texas, buried in her rich vir- 
gin soil, and floating in her salubrious atmosphere, — a gra- 
tuitous bounty of the Creator to its inhabitants. We would 
comprehend this much better, if each man owning an acre of 
land could dig down a few feet, and find his twenty, fifty, one 
hundred, or two hundred dollars of coined gold, there de- 
posited for him. Still it is certainly there in the extra-fertility 
of the soil and subsoil, over all of the tillable portions of Texas, 
and over most of the grazing portions too, if he will only have 
the digging done in the right way. 

Under every fertile soil, or soil that has been fertile, (with 
some occasional exceptions, not necessary now to be noticed,) 
there is a substratum of earth, or rock of some sort, that is a 
good mineral fertilizer, that receives the water through the 
surface from the winter and spring rains, and in response to 
the heat of the summer and fall, loads the ascending vapor 
with a mineral fertility that enriches the surface. This pro- 
cess is continuous wherever the surface-water returns in vapor 
from the bowels of the earth. It is a fertility that does not 
have to be purchased, as does guano, nor carted from the 
manure heap. It is by this process that worn out lands re- 
vive upon being turned out for a few years, and it is on ac- 
count of the activity and certainty of this process, that some 
of our black, limy lands, under-laid by a white cretaceous 
limestone, cannot, it seems, be worn out. Texas abounds in 
rich mineral substrata of various sorts, such as lime and marls, 
both clay and shell marls, that ensure a durable fertility to 
its soils. That this may be made intelligible to any one, who 
may doubt it, let it be reduced to figures. What is it worth 
to make, by the use of fertilizers, a barren soil of sandy-loam 
or clay produce, per acre, 1 5 bushels of wheat, 40 bushels 
of corn, or 1,000 pounds of cotton, on an average, from year 
to year? It will take ten dollars annually. There are nu- 
merous farms in northern and middle Texas, on the black, 
limy land, that have produced a greater average than that, 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS. 37 

The wealth of Texas buried in her rich virgin soil. 

for the last thirty years, without any manure ; and the straw 
or other stubble of the crops has been burned off every year 
to get clear of it ; still those lands produce with undiminished 
fertility. The amount loaned at safe interest, (say at ten per 
cent.) necessary to raise the ten dollars per acre, to be ex- 
pended in manuring the barren land, is one hundred dollars ; 
and that is the amount that the Texan who owns an acre of 
black, stiff, limy soil, resting on a white cretaceous limestone, 
has imbedded in his land as a permanent agricultural invest- 
ment. This will give some faint idea of the millions upon 
millions of permanent wealth that is now imbedded in the vast 
domain of Texas, — which is bounteous Nature's free gift to 
man, — provokingly awaiting the touch of labor to bring it 
forth, not as the transient wealth of the gold mine, but lasting 
from year to year, and from generation to generation, while 
the rains fall, and the sun shines, to put the earth in perpetual 
activity to produce it. 

The minerals, the timbers, the native grasses, and various 
other objects in Texas, could be shown in the same way to 
possess immense values, as gifts of Nature, not worked for by 
man, but to be realized by, and in addition to his labor, when 
it is properly applied to them. 



CHAPTER III. 



Great Variety of Productions. 



Great variety of natural and artificial productions exhibited in passing through 
Texas on a line from east to west, and from south to nortli, and its extent in 
latitude and longitude. 

Its division by regular belts of countiy, with the characteristics of each ; the 
Level Gulf prairie belt ; the Long-leaf Pine belt ; the Magnolia belt ; the Red- 
Land belt ; the Black Jack belt ; the Short-leaf Pine district ; the Black, Limy 
Prairie belt ; the Mountains and Cross-timbers ; the High Grazing Plains and 
Vallfys ; the Staked Plain. '^Llano Estacado." 

The effects upon bottom lands of rivers that flow from and through these belts. 

Of all the resources with which Texas abounds, those 
which will first be developed, as the mainspring of its future 
improvements, are agricultural and pastoral, either in combi- 
nation, or separately. Its qualities in reference to them 
should therefore demand our immediate attention. Its manu- 
facturing and mining interests must necessarily be postponed 
for these. 

A general view having been presented of its adaptation to 
production, it will now be appropriate to give a more particu- 
lar description of the particular portions of the country, with 
the peculiarities of each, as the best means of conveying a 
complete idea of the whole. In its locality on the continent 
it is central between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans ; lying 
on the north-west corner of the Gulf of Mexico ; extending 
as far south as 26 deg. N. L., as far north as 36 deg., and 
embraced between the lines of longitude 94 and 107. The 
main body of the country, however, is embraced within an 
area of about 700 by 500 miles, bounded on the east by 
Louisiana, on the north by Arkansas, the Indian Territory, 
and New Mexico ; on the west by Mexico ; and on the south 
by the Gulf of Mexico. The most remarkable thing pertain- 
ing to it is the almost endless variety, — a variety in everything 
pertaining to a country within the temperate zone. Each 
region of seventy miles square differs from every other in 

38 



GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 39 

Division by regular belts of country. 

some essential particular, except, perhaps, the great plains of 
the west. To illustrate this, let a line be drawn from the 
Sabine River on the east, to the Rio Grande on the west, 
on the 32 degree of north latitude, you will find, in passing 
from east to west on this line, a climate, first moist, then 
medium, and then dry; at first, tall forests, then scrubby 
growth, then prairie intermixed with timber, then bare 
and arid plains ; first, a region well suited to the growth of 
cotton and corn, then of orchard fruits and grapes as 
well as corn and cotton, then of wheat as well as corn and 
cotton, then of the native grasses for grazing, with rich 
valleys for cultivation, and then whatever can be produced by 
Irrigation. 

A like variety, on that line, will be found in the face of the 
country, in its scenery, in its waters, its soils and sub-soils, 
and in the rocks, all in regular succession. 

So, too, if we take a point on the Gulf at the mouth of the 
Colorado River and go north, you leave the sugar region, 
and passing through the cotton region, reach the wheat and 
grain region of northern Texas. If, however, you go west 
from the mouth of the Colorado River, you soon pass out of 
the sugar and cotton regions, and go immediately into the 
dry grazing region of western Texas, one of the best, if not 
the best, wool raising districts in the world, where the sheep 
graze the year round and are seldom housed. Thus it will 
be seen that similarity in latitude and longitude constitutes 
no reliable criterion of the climate or productions, as is the 
case in most countries. The explanation of this is greatly 
dependent upon its intrinsic and relative physical geography, 
and the character of its different soils and seasons. 

Upon taking a broad survey of the whole country, we find 
it arranged into strips, or belts of countr}', having leading 
points of similarity, generally well defined, though sometimes 
inter-mixing, or running into each other. 

A line from a point thirty or forty miles west of Corpus 
Christi, at the north-west corner of the Gulf, drawn north- 
eastwardly to a point on Red River, thirty or forty miles 
above Fulton, will sufficiently indicate the line of division 
between the forests of the east and south, and of the prairies 



40 GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 

Division by regular belts of country. 

of the west and north ; though it will be found that there will 
be tracts of prairrie-country east of that line, and timbered 
tracts west of it. (See map 3.) Corpus Christi is the point 
on the coast where the Gulf has not receded from the un- 
dulating prairie. From that point west and north-east there 
is a belt of low, level prairie, which may be designated as 

The Level Gulf Prairie Belt. 
(See Map No. 3.) 
North-east of Corpus Christi this level prairie widens as 
it proceeds, reaching at the Sabine River a width of forty 
or fifty miles. In its whole extent it constitutes one of the 
largest dead-level plains in North America. It has every ap- 
pearance of having been formed by the. receding of the 
waters of the Gulf, and is, at the upper-edge, not more, per- 
haps, than thirty feet in altitude above the Gulf It has a 
variety of soil, such as sandy, dark mixed sandy, and black, 
stiff, limy soils. During the winter and spring it is wet. 
In most places water stands upon it, which rots or destroys 
the nutrition of the grass, and injures the land in cultivation. 
When properly drained, however, as it in time will be, in con- 
nection with the river bottoms that extend through it to the 
Gulf from above, it will be the great sugar, sea-island cotton, 
and rice region of Texas. 

The Long Leaf Pine Belt. 
(See Map No. 3.) 
Immediately above and north of this level Gulf prairie, in 
south-eastern Texas, lies a body of long-leaf yellow pine, over 
one hundred miles in width, on the Sabine River from about 
Sabine Town (31 1-2 degrees N. L.,) down that stream, and 
thence west, diminishing in width for about one hundred 
miles. This lies just below the old San Antonio road (or the 
"King's Highway" as it was formerly called,) as it passes 
through eastern Texas, where it is in the shape of high, roll- 
ing ridges, or undulating plains, and becomes more and more 
level as you go southward, until it reaches the level gulf 
prairie, which it joins. The soil of this tract consists gener- 
ally of very coarse angular sand, sometimes intermixed with 
considerable vegetable mould, with a poor sub-soil of yellow 



GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 41 

Division by regular belts of country. 

joint clay, mixed with sand, and usually very deep. There is 
other timber than pine upon, and adjoining, the numerous 
streams of this region. The timber grows rapidly, with long, 
slender, pliant branches, and is intermixed with evergreens and 
vines, — especially the Muscadine vine, — indicating the preva- 
lence of a great deal of moisture. The numerous and never- 
failing streams furnish water-power to saw up the pine, cy- 
press and other trees, into lumber. 

Magnolia Belt. (See Map 3.) 

There is, about the middle of this pine region, a very fertile 
belt, which may be denominated as the Magnolia belt, about 
twenty miles wide, running westwardly from the Sabine River 
(through Newton, Jasper, Tyler, Polk, and into Walker and 
Montgomery countries,) about 31 deg. N. L. It is not an 
unbroken strip, but is run into by the pine in different places, 
so as to make it irregular in form. It is overgrown with a 
magnificent forest of mammoth white-oaks, beach, sugar-tree, 
elm, water-oak and magnolia, with innumerable evergreens 
and vines, presenting, even upon the ridges, the appearance 
of a rich bottom, adjoining a river. 

This forest grows on a deep, coarse, sandy loam, frequently 
with no firm sub-soil for many feet in depth, so that, when 
very wet, a cane can be pushed down by the hand ten feet, in 
many localities. It was originally a vast cane-brake, but is 
now overgrown with dense thickets, called hammocks. This 
soil does not last well on account of the fertility, consisting 
mainly of surface loam from vegetable decomposition, and 
from the rapid evaporation caused by the coarse sand, and 
moist climate. There are in this belt, however, spots of black, 
stiff, limy soil, just such as is found in the richest prairies, 
which is often covered sparsely with scrubby pine trees. 
These spots diminish in size, as you go from west to east. 
There is also another sort of mixed soil, partaking partly of 
the character of both of those last described, called "dirt 
lands," which, as well as the black, limy soil there, is very 
durable and productive. This is the region in Texas pecu- 
liarly adapted to the production of Cuba-Tobacco, especially 
on the ridges overgrown with water-oak and magnolia. It is 
also suitable for sugar, rice and cotton. These two belts of 



42 GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 



Division by regular belts of countiy. 



level gulf prairie, and long-leaf pine, intermixed with the 
magnolia, extend eastwardly through Louisiana, getting wider 
and more scattered towards the north as they go east, until 
they reach the bottom of the Mississippi River. 

The Red-Land Belt. (See Map 3.) 
Above the long-leaf pine belt is that of the Red-lands, 
reaching from the Trinity River to the Sabine, about and 
above the line of 31 1-2 degrees of N. L. (in Houston, An- 
derson, Cherokee, Nacogdoches, San Augustine and Sabine 
counties.) Though scattered in its western end, near the 
Trinity it becomes concentrated, while diminishing in width, 
nearly to a point, before it reaches the Sabine River. In Na- 
cogdoches and San Augustine counties, it is usually not more 
than from six to ten miles wide. The soil is dark red, very 
firm and when wet is "waxy" or sticky," like the black, limy 
lands, and is several feet deep. It is underlaid by a red clay 
under which is often found a bed of shell lime rock (being 
sea-shells with a clay and sand cement) of a bluish grey color. 
This is a fine building rock. The same material, not yet ma- 
tured into rock, is found also in the shape of bluish shell 
marl, which, when dug out and exposed to the air, becomes 
an excellent fertilizer, as would the rock if burned. This red- 
land is very durable and fertile, though, from its mixture of 
lime and oxide of iron, it is inclined to be very drougthy un- 
less it is broken up very deeply, which must be done in early 
spring or winter, if done at all. It is well adapted to com, 
wheat and other grains, and also to cotton, while fresh, or 
when deeply tilled. The face of the country is bolder and 
more broken than that south of it, and it is overgrown with a 
rather low, well branched forest of hickory, black-jack, post- 
oak, red-oak, elm and other trees, whose foliage is of a very 
rich, dark green color. 

The Black-Jack Belt. (See Map 3.) 
This red-land is the lower edge and, indeed, is a part of a 
belt of country that lies in a direction north-east and south- 
west from the north-eastern corner of Texas, towards Corpus 
Christi on the Gulf, diminishing as you go south-west; which, 
from the uniform prevalence of that timber, may be denomi- 
nated as "the black-jack belt." Other trees such as hickory. 



GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 43 

Division by regular belts of country. 

red-oak and post-oak abound, all of which are low and heavy- 
topped. It has in it spots of red and of chocolate land, and 
sometimes, though rarely, of dark prairie land and also of 
high table-lands. This belt generally has a deep, 
dry, easily pulverized soil of fine sandy loam, usually 
grey, or yellow, or an ashy color, underlaid by a compact red, 
or yellow clay sub-soil. Abounding in iron-ore hills, the 
soils adjacent thereto are reddened and enriched thereby. 
This belt is characterized throughout by a mellow, loose, dry 
soil of very fine texture, most of which is soluble in water, 
with sufficient sand to prevent it from running together, and 
from breaking up into clods when plowed. And though pos- 
sessing a general similarity, there is considerable variety both 
in appearance and in fertility. It is all high and rolling, or un- 
dulating in its surface, and abounds in springs of free-stone 
water. It is distinctly and well defined in eastern and middle 
Texas, diminishing in width as you go south-west, being about 
eighty miles wide on a line through Rusk, Smith and Van- 
zandt counties. This is peculiarly the region of mixed crops, 
adapted to the medium production of almost everything that 
can be produced in the temperate zone, as corn, cotton, po- 
tatoes, wheat, apples, peaches, pears, plums, figs and garden 
vegetables. Being also much dryer and higher than the re- 
gion below it, it is well adapted to the culture of grapes. In- 
deed it is a natural vineyard, having native grapes bearing 
well and growing wild all over it, some of which are as large 
and palatable as the cultivated grapes. The species most 
common is the large post-oak, or sand-hill grape of summer. 
This belt is extended through north-western Louisiana, and 
into the interior of Arkansas, expanding and becoming less 
distinct as it goes in that direction, being more broken into 
by other adjoining formations. 

Short Leaf Pine Region. (See Map 3.) 
In the state of Louisiana, lying between the black-jack and 
long-leaf pine belts, is a well marked, large district of short-leaf 
pine country, intermixed with red-oak, as the next leading 
growth, though abounding in a great variety of other trees, 
including the dogwood. The muscadine grows all over it, 
indicating its fitness for the culture of the scuppernong grape. 



44 GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 

Division by regular belts of country. 

This section, in reference to moisture and fineness in the sand 
of the soil, is about a medium between the long- leaf pine and 
the black-jack belts ; is underlaid by a red and yellow clay 
sub-soil, the surface being almost invariably dark gray and 
compact, rather than loose and mellow ; and is well adapted 
to cotton, though not so well suited for grains, fruits and 
grapes as the black-jack region, on account of the greater 
moisture, coarser material of the soil, and flatness of the coun- 
try. This character of country covers a broad district from 
Pine-Bluff on the Arkansas and Monroe on the Washita 
Rivers, extending in a diminishing body into the eastern part 
of Texas (in Shelby, Panola, Harrison and Cass counties,) 
and extends itself south and west in broken, detached parcels 
and strips, considerably into the black-jack belt, constituting 
the pineries of north-eastern, eastern and middle Texas. 
Wherever found, the soil is closer, coarser and more moist, 
than that of the body of the country in their vicinity. 
They do not reach further than to the middle, and never go 
to the western edge of the black-jack belt by a distance of 
thirty or forty miles, by which that belt preserves an unin- 
terrupted body in its whole course in Texas just below the 
prairie line. 

The Black, Limy Belt. (See Map 3.) 
The next belt is that of the black, limy prairie, which, leav- 
ing the Rio Grande, just below the mountains, below the 
mouth of Devil's River, and above the level Gulf prairie be- 
low Lerado, sweeps around below the mountains (at San An- 
tonio and Austin) and turning northward, in niore distinct 
form, is bounded by the line of mountains and cross-timbers on 
the west and by the black-jack belt on the east, and passing 
over Red River, scatters itself partially into the south-western 
part of Arkansas ; (as is evidenced by the black, limy lands of 
Hempstead and other adjoining counties of that state) but 
principally passes over the Indian Territory, west of the flint- 
rock hills and mountains, which cover most of the western 
portion of Arkansas reaching down to Little Rock on the 
Arkansas River. This belt, not well defined west of San An- 
tonio, but much better north-east of Austin, is from thirty to 
eighty miles wide, getting broader and putting out off-shoots 



GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 45 

Division by regular belts of country. 

as it goes north-eastwardly. In approaching it from the 
south-east and east, in its course, you do not come suddenly 
upon a broad, extensive prairie, but upon small prairies first 
and then larger, for fifteen or twenty miles. This mixed tract 
or strip, between the timbered country and the prairies, is 
generally very level, partaking in its soils of a mixture of the 
two, and affords a great amount of valuable timber, especial- 
ly post-oak, which, next to pine, is perhaps our most valuable 
timber, and which indeed may be said to be the fencing tim- 
ber of Texas prairies, although in some parts of the west 
fences have been made extensively of cedar rails and polls. 
The black-jack timber also thrusts itself liberally on this dis- 
puted territory. The soil is a medium between the grey, 
loose, sandy loam on one side of it, and the black, stiff or 
sandy lime land on the other, and is regarded as thin land. 
Being flat, it holds too much water in the spring season, and 
bakes hard when the heat of summer dries it. Much of it 
is like the post-oak flats, or swags of the black-jack region 
and must be improved by drainage. 

In this neutral territory the prairies have names given to 
them by the early settlers. Around their edges in middle and 
southern Texas, the trees are often loaded with the mustang 
grape. Leaving this strip you will rise upon a high, rolling 
prairie, — grand to look upon, — with winding streaks of tim- 
ber in the valleys of the streams, whose low tops do not im- 
pede the extensive view before you, or with a little mott of tim- 
ber here and there upon a ridge, seen at a distance, like an island 
in the sea, you pass generally over a black, sandy soil, and 
finally enter upon the deep, black, stiff, limy lands, which are 
about as rich as lands are ever found in a state of nature. 
The soil is from two to ten feet deep, and, indeed, the sub- 
soil is similar to the surface in its ingredients of lime, gypsum, 
clay, and sometimes sand and other materials, with the ex- 
ception of the vegetable matter, incorporated with the surface 
soil by the decay of the grasses. It rises gradually, as you 
advance upon it, to its western and north-western verge, when 
you find yourself upon an elevated ridge, where the white, 
soft cretaceous lime-rock crops out, which underlies the un- 
dulating, rising plain that you have passed over, and from 



46 GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 

Division by regular belts of country. 

which point of elevation you overlook usually a deep, broad 
valley of three or four miles (sometimes less,) in width, and see 
a little blue streak above the horizon, which is the lower cross- 
timbers if you should be in northern Texas, or the mountains 
if you should be in middle and south-western Texas, which 
are more distinctly seen and not so far off. The bottom lands 
of the rivers and other streams that pass through this belt, 
from the country above it, are usually covered with a dense 
body of timber of various sorts, as post-oak, spanish-oak, 
over-cup-oak, elm, ash, hack-berry, chittum-wood, pecan and 
others. Upon the ridges and flats between the streams may 
frequently be seen clusters of scattered musquite trees, which 
resemble an old neglected orchard of peach and apple trees. 
The musquite is a very hard wood and makes an exceedingly 
hot fire. It is peculiarly the growth of the whole prairie 
country and is increasing very fast in the west. 

The surface of the earth being stiff, limy material, holds 
the water that falls on it, and the almost constant winds 
that sweep over it facilitate its evaporation, and for that 
reason, also, there are but few springs, because the 
water cannot sink into the bowels of the earth to be there 
stored away, for a source of supply to fountains, as is pecu- 
liarly the case in the more loose, sandy loam in the black-jack 
belt, where springs are very numerous. This black, limy belt 
is pre-eminently adapted to the rich native grasses that grow 
on all parts of it most luxuriantly. As it sweeps around (the 
segment of a large circle,) from the Rio Grande of the far 
west, to Red River of northern Texas, a distance of at least 
six hundred miles or more, it is necessarily subject to great 
variations in its climate and productions. Two hundred miles 
of the north-eastern end of it, together with the black and 
dark-red prairies, lying between the lower and upper cross- 
timbers, (about twenty-five miles wide,) constitute t'he great 
wheat region of Texas. It is probable, also, that experience 
and fair trials will soon point out the way to make two hun- 
dred miles more of it a fine wheat and small grain country. 
The extreme western portion of it is likely to remain a grazing 
region on the up-lands, on account of the dryness of the sea- 



GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 47 

Division by regular belts of country. 

sons, until irrigation shall have been resorted to, as a means 
of insuring abundant crops on its rich soil. Its fertility gen- 
erally seems to be inexhaustible ; and when the seasons suit, 
it brings large crops of corn, cotton, tobacco, turnips, sorgo 
and small grains. The mustang grape grows wild in great abun- 
dance, in most parts of it, usually near the streams, or in the 
hollows. It is a large, rough, brown grape, good for wine 
and brandy ; and bears by the wagon load, rather than by 
the bushel. 

This black, limy belt is not regarded so good for garden 
vegetables and orchards, except in those spots in which there 
is not a stiff, limy soil. The famous Bois d'arc timber, (pro- 
nounced Bodark,) is found in a belt of country about twenty 
miles wide, running from the mouth of the east fork of the 
Trinity north to the Red River. It is perhaps the best wagon 
timber in the world, from its not shrinking, nor rotting as 
other wood does ; it is used extensively in hedges and is 
thought to be valuable as a dye. 

The Mountains and Cross-Timbers. (See Map 3.) 

At the upper edge of this black, limy belt, which is gener- 
ally about six hundred feet high, is found the mountains 
which connect with the lower cross-timbers of northern Texas, 
and constitute the terminus and base of a vast, undulating 
and often rugged, plain, ascending rapidly towards a common 
center to the "Staked Plain," situated partly in north-western 
Texas, and partly in New Mexico, about four thousand feet 
high (which is above the average height of the Alleghany 
ledge of mountains). It is, indeed, but a high, broad table- 
land, connected with the Rocky Mountains, with its southern 
verge in the shape of rocky cliffs resting on the plain below, 
which are called mountains. The cross-timbers (as they are 
called,) are two parallel belts of post-oaks and other trees, 
each from fifteen to twenty miles wide, and about twenty-five 
miles apart, growing on a sandy soil, running nearly south 
from the Red River to the Brazos River, where they are joined 
to, and apparently form part of, the chain of mountains (as 
they are called) in middle and south-western Texas, The 
soil in the cross-timbers is generally a coarse, yellow, sandy 
loam, with an occasional prairie of small proportions and high 



48 GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 

Division by regular belts of country. 

peaks, indicating a marked change in the face of the country, 

from that of the black, Hmy plain below. 

The High Dry Grazing Plains and The Staked Plain. 

The staked plain (so called from the fact that the Mexicans 
staked it with posts as guides in passing over it,) is high table 
land extending for about ninety miles, in going over it from 
east to west, on the route from northern Texas to El Paso. 
The plain, descending east and south from this to the moun- 
tains and cross-timbers, is the great grazing region of Texas — 
of vast extent. 

All maps of North America made forty to fifty years ago, 
presented a large tract of country included in the term 
" Great American Sandy Desert," Latter explorations prove 
most of it to be better than the average farming districts of the 
north-eastern states. So with the " Staked Plains." For 
many years they have been supposed to be of little or no 
value ; but all of the engineering parties sent over it the past 
few years, report that much of it is very fine grazing land. 

Possessed of a rich, limy soil in its valleys and high plains, 
it requires very little mosture in the winter and spring to 
bring forth a crop of nutritious short grass, which, from the 
dryness of the climate, matures and is turned into good hay 
on the ground, thereby furnishing food for stock during all 
seasons of the year, because it does not there rot in the winter, 
as do the grasses near the coast by excess of moisture. The 
lower edge of this grazing plain has, running through it, bold 
streams with rich valleys that produce finely ; and many of 
them will doubtless be irrigated where it is necessary, as it 
generally will be in most parts of that region. Part of Texas 
lying north of the Red River, sometimes called the "Pan 
Handle," is a part of this plain just described, and partakes 
of the same character. 

The Pecos and Rio Grande. 

Those two rivers run southward from the very high moun- 
tains in New Mexico and Colorado, and, in their whole course 
in Texas, pass through a dry country. The farms, cultivated 
below El Paso -on the Rio Grande, are famous for their fruits, 
and especially for their grapes, which for table use, and for 
wine, are regarded as inferior to none in the world. Most of 



GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 49 

Division by regular belts of country. 

the country through which these rivers flow, (except the 
lower Rio Grande), constitutes a part of the high descending 
plain that has been described. Most of the rivers that flow 
out of, or through the regions of the "Staked Plain," (as do 
the Pecos, branches of the Colorado, of the Red River, and 
the Arkansas River), have their waters made bitter by the 
extensive gypsum bed of that region, which is said to be not 
less than three hundred miles square ; and this is also one 
cause of the remarkable fertility of the bottom-lands of those 
streams that are occasionally overflowed. The whole of this 
elevated grazing region is underlaid with a substratum, mostly 
of limestone rock of various kinds, genenally much harder 
than that of the region below. 

To understand the qualities and natural resources of Texas 
in all of its parts, this classification into belts should be studied 
by aid of the maps, so as to fix it indelibly upon the mind. 
These belts that have been described, though they may 
slightly intermix, or break into each other, at their con- 
tiguous margins, and therefore not always form a regular line ; 
yet, if a broad view be taken, they will be found to have a 
substantial connection in all of their parts, and to have well 
defined characteristics. 

Nor is this a useless, or merely curious, investigation, for, 
considered as a matter of practical utility, the understanding 
of the peculiarities of each section, and the nature and causes 
of production there, and the reason of the difference between 
that and other sections, is one of the very best means of com- 
prehending the true science of production generally. It fur- 
nishes material for comparison under different conditions, 
and facilitates the tracing of the effects observed, back to 
their true causes, and spreads out a wide field for study and 
improvement. 

Though there is a similarity in the vegetable growth of 
each one of these belts of country, there is, nevertheless, a 
marked difference, produced by the different character of the 
climate, in reference to the heat and moisture, prevailing in 
each portion of the country, as exhibited in the previous chap- 
ter on the "Physical Geography of Texas." Hence, we find 
a very different production of vegetable growth on the black, 
4* 



50 GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTIONS. 

Division by regular belts of country. 



limy soil of northern Texas, from that on similar soil in the 
extreme south-western part. The two chapters must be 
studied with reference to each other, in order to fully under- 
stand the condition of things which, in any particular locality, 
affect vegetable production. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Comparison of the Different Belts. 



A comparison of the different belts of country, with reference to the productions 
in each, and with the reasons therefor. 

The tendency to increase the fruit-bearing in trees and crops, as the wood-pro- 
ducing capacity diminishes, and to what extent, as exhibited in the different 
belts of country that are found in Texas. 

Bottom lands in Texas. How they are formed, and the different kinds in the dif- 
ferent rivers and other streams in Texas. Their ([ualities, and how they may, 
or may not, be redeemed from overflows. When overflows are necessary, and 
when not, to preserve their fertility. 

Benefits ofgeneralization and classification in the.<iescri))lion of a country. 

Having, in the previous chapters, pointed out the leading 
characteristics in the chmate and soils, in the different sections 
of the state, and designated the various belts which traverse 
its territory, with some of their prominent attributes, it maybe 
instructive to consider their qualities in comparison with each 
other, as well as some of the reasons of the difference, for the 
purpose of impressing a more definite idea of each. After 
which the bottom lands upon the rivers and creeks may well 
demand our attention, as but little reference has heretofore 
been made to them. (See Maps i, 2 & 3.) 

It may be remarked that heretofore, as will be the case 
hereafter, reference has been made to the growth of trees, 
not that the growing of trees is an object of attention or in- 
terest for the sake of the trees themselves at present, but be- 
cause the manner and size of the growth of trees during a 
series of years, or generations, together with tlie kind of trees 
grown in any section of country, is one of the very best indi- 
cations of what cultivated crops the country is capable of pro- 
ducing ; which fact is well known to thoughtful agriculturists. 
It is a well known fact, for instance, that cotton will grow in 
the shape of the trees of the forest where it is planted, and 
v/ill bear its fruit very much in proportion to the fruit-bearing 

51 



52 COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT BELTS. 



Capacity of each indicated in the native growth. 



trees there. In all those parts of eastern Texas that have 
been found to produce superior and abundant orchard-fruits, 
their capacity in that respect is plainly indicated in the native 
growth of the wild plum, haw-trees of different sorts, hickory, 
walnut and many other fruit-bearing trees on the up-lands. 

The same may be said of the vines. Smith county, in the 
center of the black-jack belt, may be truly said to be a natural 
vineyard ; grape vines, mostly of the large post-oak or sand- 
hill species, grow all over it ; which plainly indicates what 
experiment has demonstrated, its capacity to produce fine 
vineyards of cultivated grapes. The muscadine, so common 
in the moist regions of the extreme eastern part of the state, 
point to its fitness for the scuppernong, which is itself a mus- 
cadine, originating in the low, moist country upon the coast of 
North Carolina, 

In the moist regions of the east the trees are large with long, 
slender twigs, and few thorns. In the dry region of the far 
west, in the same latitude, thorns or stubbed limbs cover all 
the trees. That plainly indicates that the fine grasses of the 
west would be smothered out by the dense and rapid growth 
of trees in the east ; and that sugar and cotton would not 
grow in the far west (except on farms irrigated). For this 
purpose, then, addressing myself first to the comparison of the 
various sections or belts heretofore pointed out, it may be 
asked what makes a tree, a grape vine, a plant of corn or 
cotton, stock of wheat, or a blade of grass grow ? 

You see an acorn planted in the soil. It has the oak-tree 
in embryo in it. The roots shoot down and the stem upwards. 
The stem forms into a body with branches, covered w^ith foli- 
age. There it stands after fifty years growth, in the same 
place, having increased by accumulated matter, to many tons 
weight. The acorn did not weigh one-half an ounce. Near 
it st«nds an ash, a sugar-maple, a pine, a sweet-gum, a wal- 
nut, and a cherry tree, that have all grown and increased in 
the same way, in the same character of soil, and under the 
same circumstances. (There is an acre of ground in Smith 
county, where there are three times as many different sorts 
of tree«, as those here mentioned, now standing.) 

The earth does not seem to have been diminished in bulk 



COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT BELTS. 5; 



Philosophy of the growth of trees. 



in the formation of this great increase of vegetable matter, 
The quaUties of these trees, that have thus grown together, 
are each different from the other, in almost every respect. 
Yet they have not had the power of locomotion, to travel off 
and select their respectively peculiar qualities. They have 
gotten them where they stand. They exist as the inhabitants 
of two natural regions, — their roots in the earth, and their 
body, branches, and foliage in the air. The ingredients of 
the earth, and of the air then, by their co-operation, have given 
them the increase of weight, and furnished them so great a 
variety of materials in the same locality. They will not grow 
without the air, or without the earth. The truth is, that both 
the earth and the air, not only furnish materials from their 
own intrinsic ingredients, but also act as agents in collecting, 
preparing and transmitting other materials to act in aid of 
themselves, in producing these trees. This proposition may 
be illustrated by supposing a similar cluster of these trees to 
be growing in the different belts of country as described in the 
previous chapter. On the Gulf prairie the sweet-gum and 
the pine might flourish to some extent, but most of the others, 
unless under very favorable circumstances, would hardly sur- 
vive the excessive change from the moisture of winter and 
spring, to the dryness of summer and fall. On the magnolia 
belt, in the long-leaf pine region, they would all flourish to- 
gether in magnificence, growing tall and large. On the black- 
jack belt they would grow well, but with diminished size and 
height, and with heavier tops and more branches. On the 
black, limy belt the sweet-gum and pine would disappear for 
the want of moisture ; also the ash and sugar tree, except in 
the bottoms. On the plains, above the cross- timbers and 
mountains, the oak, if of a species as hardy as the live-oak, 
might grow as a scrubby tree in favorable localities ; all the 
others would, as a general thing, not survive the heat and 
dryness. On the staked plain none of them now do grow at 
all. In all of these localities, soils with sufficient materials of 
fertility exist to produce them, and the air itself (in its 
mere mixture of oxygen and nitrogen), is exactly the same in 
each locality. In the production of fruits as the apple and 
the grape, or of fruit-bearing plants, as cotton, corn, and wheat, 



54 COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT BELT. 



Philosophy of the growth of fruit. 



equal variations would appear, though not in parallel order; 
for in the pine region the apple trees, though large, would 
not bear much good fruit, and so of the grape ; corn would 
be light, and cotton long-jointed, and wheat would generally 
fail from rust, or other causes, notwithstanding it is the best 
region in Texas to produce mere growth of the wood, or 
stalks. In the black-jack region the fruits would be better, 
though the wood growth would not be so large. In the black, 
limy belt the fruits would rather improve in amount, in propor- 
tion to the diminution in the growth of wood, and the wheat 
largely in quantity and weight of grain. In the dry plains 
above, the difficulty seems rather to be in producing the wood 
to bear the fruits, than in any want of adaptation to fruit- 
bearing in them, when sufficiently produced and sustained. 
For on the irrigated lands of the Rio Grande near El Paso, 
(32 deg. N. L.,) these fruits are not only abundant, but of the 
very finest quality, especially the grapes. Indeed, the ten- 
dency to fruit-bearing seems to increase in proportion as the 
wood-producing tendency diminishes, until it reaches a point 
where there is not enough wood produced to bear the fruit. 
In the same sections these differences, both in wood-pro- 
ducing and in fruit-bearing, are dependent upon the differ- 
ence in the soil, in its composition alone, other things being 
equal. In the long-leaf pine region, the spots of black, limy 
soil produce more grain than the hammock lands of coarse, 
sandy loam adjoining them. The sandy or mixed soils of the 
cross-timbers produce a variety of scrubby trees, while the 
adjoining black, limy soil of the prairie is bare of trees gener- 
ally. The iron-ore hills of the black-jack belt produce a vig- 
orous growth of hickory, red-oak and black-jack, whereas, the 
adjoining "sand flat" ridges may produce only the blue-jack, 
or very dwarfish post-oak, and the next ridge of coarser, stiffer, 
sandy soil may be covered mostly with short-leaf pine. A 
difference in production is also attributable to the compact- 
ness or looseness of a soil alone, irrespective of its ingredients. 
A rock may be composed of lime, clay, sand and other in- 
gredients, in such combination as to readily make a fine soil, 
if crushed and pulverized, and nothing but a scanty moss will 
cover its surface ; whereas, its loose debris at its base may 



COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT BELTS. 55 

Philosophy of vegetation. 



bring a rich growth of wood. So the fertile, stiff, red or black 
lands will produce but poorly, unless broken up before the 
increasing heat of summer has rendered them too hard to be 
pulverized' deeply. That is not so necessary on the sandy 
loam of.the black-jack belt, because it is usually found in a 
state of natural pulverization. On the other extreme, how- 
ever, vegetation cannot spring forth upon a loose, drift- 
ing sandy plain, like the desert of Sahara, any more 
than it can upon the loose, wind-beaten sand near the beach 
of the gulf. It is too loose, as the rock is too hard, to pro- 
duce vegetation. In the case of the rock the particles are 
fixed to their places, and do not permit a circulation of air, 
w^ater or heat sufficiently to generate a chemical process, 
which is necessary to furnish food to the roots of plants. 
Whereas, in the excessively loose sand, too much heat may 
be admitted, or the sands may not be sufficiently fixed to en- 
able the roots to hold their position. 

The warmth of spring brings forth vegetation in rapid 
haste, to clothe earth in radiant verdure. Declining summer, 
in sultry heat, makes it pause and rest for a new st^rt in 
early fall. The chill winds of autumn disrobe it of its faded 
beauty, and frosty winter holds it stationary in its iron grasp. 
These changes are all the result of the degrees of heat in one 
locality, — first stimulating by gradual approaches, next de- 
pressing by excess, again stimulating by moderation, and 
lastly locking up by its iibsencc. Heat itself, like moisture 
and soil, is subject to numerous variations in its effects, de- 
pendent upon its combination with other things. The heat 
that scorches the brown plains of the far-west, invigorates 
the deep-green forests of south-eastern Texas ; and the cold, 
that rots the grass on the wet gulf prairie in winter, leaves un- 
harmed the nutrition of the grass, on the dry prairies of the 
north-west, though there more intense. Corn will not grow 
on a deep bed of pure lime or ashes, though excellent ma- 
nure when scattered, because chemical action requires more 
than one substance in manufacturing food for plants. Sub- 
soils, as well as soils, produce great differences in the same 
locality, for the reason that their mineral ingredients are 
brought to the surface by the evaporation that is usually tak- 



56 COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT BELTS. 

Bottom lands of Texas. 



ing place. Hence, a good clay or lime substratum seldom 
fails to make rich soils, and to aid in keeping them so. The 
effect of electric action is readily perceived in the freshness of 
plants after a thunder shower in summer. The asparagus 
springs out of its bed in the night, an inch or two, succulent 
and colorless, the light of the sun during the day turns it 
green, and gives it toughnc:;3 and solidity. Hence, our cloud- 
less prairies produce the horn-like musquite wood that will 
hardly decay with time, and, when dry, burns almost w'thout 
smoke. They produce also the Bois D'Arc and the live-oak, 
both of which are extremly solid and durable timbers. 
Bottom Lands of Texas. 
Throughout the Mississippi valley, and particularly west of 
the river, there is a great disparity between the amount of 
water which flows down the streams in different seasons of 
the year, and in different years. In summer and fall the 
amount is usually small, in comparison with that of win- 
ter and spring. Hence, our streams, both large and small, 
are provided with two beds, or aqueducts, for carrying off the 
water, one embraced within the other. One of them is a 
small channel, only sufficiently broad and deep to contain and 
carry off the water that flows, ordinarily, down the stream. 
The other is a level space, from twenty to two hundred times 
broader than the channel, and through which the generally 
crooked channel meanders. This broad space, called the 
bottom, serves the place of a bed of the river or creek during 
the overflows of spring and winter. It is, however, not needed 
for that purpose but a few days or weeks, perhaps at several 
times, during the winter and spring, and seldom ever in the 
summer and fall. The Mississippi and some of its tributaries 
usually overflow their bottoms in the early part of summer. 
This is produced by the melting of the snow at their heads. 
None of our rivers in Texas, except the Rio Grande, and per- 
haps the Pecos, are subject to so late an overflow from this 
permanent cause, as their heads do not reach a region where 
the snow lies on the ground longer than a few days, or weeks, 
at one time. These bottoms also act as a reservoir to hold 
much of the water of the overflow, which sinks into and fills 
the earth, also, the lakes, ponds, and low places in the bottom, 



COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT BELTS. 57 



Bottom lands of Texas. 



remaining there after the great body of the overflow has gone 
down ; and gradually finds its way into the channel, as 
the water in the channel falls, thereby aiding the navigation 
of the stream long after the overflow of the river. This bot- 
tom being covered with water only a short time, a dense, heavy 
forest of trees usually flourishes upon it, which protects the 
surface from the rays of the sun, and protracts the duration ot 
a humid atmosphere. But for this forest, this quality of the 
bottom, as being the occasional bed of the stream, would be 
manifest to all. 

Thus, when there is an overflow of the stream in the win- 
ter, or spring, there is a guaranty of moisture to sustain sum- 
mer crops in the bottom, from a local source, in addition to 
the moisture supplied from rains during the year, and from 
the general moisture drifting in the air. 

The substance of these bottoms is formed by the deposits 
of decayed leaves and drift-wood, combined with the earthy 
materials of the muddy current that covers them, when the 
streams are swollen by overflows. They contain no regular 
strata of earth near the surface. The difference that is ob- 
servable in digging downwards, and the difference that is to be 
found in the surface soil in different localities on the bottom 
of the same stream, are attributable to the different materials 
that come down, and are deposited in, the successive over- 
flows. Thus it is that the surface soil, and substrata of 
earth in the region of country towards and above the heads 
of a stream, give character to its bottom in its whole course. 
And where several branches of a river derive their source from 
regions of different sorts of earth, — that is, one abounding in 
sand, one in clay, another in lime, or the like, — the bottom 
on the river below the confluence of these tributaries will ex- 
hibit deposits from each, either in combination, or separately. 
In this way masses of fertilizing materials are thrown together 
and constitute the deep and varied soils of our alluvial bottoms. 
To appreciate fully the amount of fertilizing material, min- 
eral as well as vegetable, it is necessary to consider that all 
of our bottoms, periodically, if not annually, are overflowed; 
that all of the waters of the overflow, (apart from the coarser 
particles, which make them turbid) hold in solution a large 



58 COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT BELTS. 

Bottom lands of Texas. 

amount of fertilizing matter, as lime, gypsum, marls and the 
like, which sinks with the water to a considerable depth in the 
bottom land, and, when the water is at rest, is deposited and 
incorporated with the other mass of made-land, thereby, with 
each successive overflow, adding to, and disseminating into 
the mass of alluvion, new, enriching materials that descend 
in solution with the water from the fertile tributaries of the 
stream. (Some idea of this may be obtained from observing 
the whitish deposit upon the sides and bottom of a glass 
tumbler in which the clear Colorado River-water has been 
standing for a single night ) 

It is in this way that the red marl plains, scattered above 
the lower "cross-timbers," are annually pouring their enriched 
red floods upon the bottoms of Red River, and of the 
Brazos. In this way the vast gypsum field, with an area equal 
to three or four hundred miles square, lying upon the head 
waters of the Pecos, Colorado, Brazos and Red River, sends 
down those streams its bitter waters, freighted with a fertiliz- 
ing material, that makes their bottoms teem with an exuber- 
ant fertility, equal to that of the Nile. In this way, also, the 
broad lime belt, stretching clear across the state from the Rio 
Grande to Red River, spreads its richness upon the bot- 
toms of all of our rivers that rise in, or pass through, it. These 
occasional overflows are necessary to sustain tl; j fertility of 
the bottom lands, when they are cultivated. The smaller and 
the more shallow the streams are, the greater is the necessity 
for the overflow. 

In a large, deep river, such as the Mississippi, or the lower 
part of the Red River, which has been levied, and thereby a 
portion of its bottom redeemed from overflow, the great 
weight of the water in the channel, and of the back water 
that lies or runs, in the rear of the redeemed space, causes the 
river-water to percolate the whole interior mass of the bottom, 
below the dry surface of the farms. This percolation to a 
great extent, supplies the place of an overflow, and prevents 
the usual effects of a drouth. Upon our creek and small river 
bottoms, the influence of this percolation is quite limited, and, 
therefore, as to them, an occasional overflow is more neces- 
sary to keep up their original fertility. 



COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT BELTS. 59 



Bottom lands of Texas. 



Our tillable bottom lands, that can be reclaimed from over- 
flow, are made in two very different ways, and are differently 
located in the bottom — one lateral, or on the margin of the 
bottom, and the other central, along the ordinary chan- 
nel of the stream. A knowledge of this process may aid in 
their successful reclamation. 

There are from time to time, that is, once in about every 
seven, ten, or twenty years, extraordinary overflows, when, as 
it may be supposed, all of the tributaries of a stream are 
swollen at the same time, which heaves out of the channel 
immense masses of earthy matter, and deposits it mostly upon 
the borders of the stream that runs in the channel, and cai , - 
ing the rest out, widens by elevating the general surface of 
the bottom. This process, aided by occasional cut-offs in the 
bends of the crooked channel, and the formation of lateral 
channels, or water-ways, (commonly called "sloos") causes a 
portion of the bottom, generally upon the margins of the 
channel of the stream, to be more elevated than the rest, and 
not subject to the ordinary annual overflows of the stream. 
Upon these marginal tracts, thus elevated, our river farms are 
situated, particularly on the larger and more rapid streams, 
such as the Brazos, the Colorado and Gaudaloupe. Unless 
protected by levies cr break-waters, or water-races at the 
edge of the bottom of the strip, they must necessarily be 
overflowed periodically. 

The other mode, by which elevations are made in the bot- 
toms, is very different. Let the stream or channel of a creek 
or river bear off and run to one side of its bottom for some 
distance, and another smaller stream, dashing down from the 
neighboring hills, enter the opposite side of the botom ; the 
smaller stream, particularly if it should be what is called a 
dry creek, or branch, will wander through the bottom, and 
very soon lose its channel entirely, and spread the sediment 
of its overflows all over the adjacent region of the level bot- 
tom ; and its turbid waters, not being readily drifted off by 
the current of the larger stream, gradually makes a deposit, 
that elevates a tract of land on the outer edge of the bottoms, 
which is not subject to the ordinary overflows of the larger 
stream. When this tract of lateral elevation is brought into 



60 COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT BELTS. 

Bottom lands of Texas. 

cultivation, it is only necessary to make a sufficient channel, 
or water-way for the smaller stream, so as to convey its 
waters into some lower portion of the bottom. The sluggish 
streams of eastern and middle Texas have much more of such 
lateral elevations, than the swift running streams of the west, 
as may be seen on the Sabine, Trinity, Neches and other 
streams. For the more rapid the current of a stream is, the 
more elevated bottom it will form contiguous to the channel, 
and the less lateral elevation, because its pressing current 
sweeps down all lateral accumulations, and invariably causes 
the out-edges of the bottom to be lower than that part which 
is near the channel. This may be aptly verified by reference 
to the two rivers, the Sabine and the Gaudaloupe. The latter, 
the Gaudaloupe, leaves the edge of the mountains at an ele- 
vation of about 600 feet, and pitches down to the gulf in the 
distance of less than two hundred miles. The former, the 
Sabine, rises near the east fork of the Trinity in Collin county, 
at an elevation of nearly 600 feet, and creeps in a serpentine 
track, through a distance of at least four hundred miles before 
reaching the gulf. The same rules hold equally good when 
applied to creeks and bayous, as to rivers. 

Now the great problem to be solved, is, how can these fer- 
tile bottoms be rescued from the devastations of these over- 
flows ? It cannot be done by levies on the banks of the channel, 
for the simple reason that the channel cannot hold and carry 
off all the water of the overflows. If it could, there would 
never have been a bottom tract formed. In this, as in all 
other works of human improvement. Nature points the way. 
Let any bottom be examined, and where there are the most, 
the deepest, broadest, and longest water-ways, (or sloos), cut 
out by force of the water, there is the most redeemed high 
land in the bottom. In the effort to carry out the plan here 
suggested, it must be predicated upon the impossibility of 
redeeming the whole bottom ; and that leads to a calculation 
in every given case, as to how much space of the bottom must 
be given to the water, and by what means shall the water of 
the overflow be made to run in that abandoned space, with 
such speed, and in such volume, as not to intrude on that 
part of the bottom sought to be reclaimed for cultivation. 



COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT BELTS. 6i 

Bottom, lands of Texas. 

This is simple, and practical, and will be carried out to the im- 
provement of many of our streams, both large and small, when 
we shall have learned and practiced upon the great advan- 
tages of co-operative effort, by which broad water-races will 
be made for ten miles, nearly straight in our creeks, and for 
fifty miles in our rivers, so that the waters of the overflow will 
rush down them with the velocity and force of a mill-race. 
There is, and of course can be, no relief by that or any other 
precaution against those periodic overflows, when the whole 
bottom is submerged to the depth of eight or ten feet, as was 
the case with the Red River in 1 849, and with the Colorado 
River only a few years since. Our rivers in eastern and mid- 
dle Texas, not having their sources so high up as those of 
Red River and the Colorado, where such deluging rain-storms 
are accidentally, and only occasionally, drifted, are not subject 
to such extreme inundations. 

Classification and Generalization. 

Some years ago an effort was made in the "Texas Alma- 
nac," to give a description of Texas, by publishing a descrip- 
tion of the qualities, productions, &c., of each county separ- 
ately. A great deal of information was thus collected. Its 
utility, however, depended too much upon mere recollection. 

By the classification and generalization adopted in this and 
the preceding chapters, a knowledge of the qualities and pro- 
ductions of any locality may more readily be acquired, and 
more certainly retained in the memory. By this system, for 
instance, if the question be asked, what sort of a country is it 
in Jasper county, in Live-Qak county, in Harris county, in 
Collin county in Comajiche county, or in El Paso county, it 
will only be necessary to look at the map of Te.xas and find 
its locality, in reference to the different belts, and the climate, 
dependent upon its physical geography, to answer the ques- 
tion. 

So if it be asked, what is the character of the bottom-lands 
of the Sabine, of the Trinity, of the Colorado, of the Gauda- 
loupe or Neucces rivers, the question is easily answered, from 
their length in the gulf plain, and from the fall of their water 
per mile in their respective course in it. 



CHAPTER V. 



Natural Sources of Wealth. 



Natural sources of wealth in Tv.'xas in its minerals and liml^ers; and trees, shrubs, 
plants and flowers, as objects of utility and ornament. 

Coal and coal oil. A vein of lignite from the Sabine River to tlie Rio (hande 
and coal in different places. 

Copper in northern Texas. Gold and silver — the tradition concerning them, &c. 
Iron abounding in the east and found in the west. Rocks for. l)uildings. 
fences, and other purposes^ found in almost every region. 

Gypsum, clay, marl and sand. 

Fertility of soil largely dependent on character of the sub-soil>, — interesting ex- 
ceptions in parts of eastern Texas and the reason therefor. 

Wood and fencing. Post-oak — the great fencing timber of the prairies, &c. 
Red-oak and Black-oak in the east. Cedar — its localities and use for fencing. 
Pine timber in south-eastern Texas, — its amount and the advantages connected 
with it. Cypress-timber in same locality. Hickory and white-oak in the east 
for wagons and carriages. Bois D'Arc timber in northern Texas — its uses and 
value. Live-oak of the south and west, its boundary and extent. Pecan, its 
locality and value. Musquite of the prairies. 

Hedges — great profit of — must be made of a plant or shrub. The Prickly Pear — 
its uses as a hedge and otherwise. The Pappaw and persimmon — their uses. 
Other trees, plants and flowers. 

Cordage — Bear grass in eastern and middle Texas good for ropes, &c., its uses. 
Medicinal trees and plants, large numlier specified. Wood-growing — the 
China tree and tree of Paradise. The valuable lessons taught by the forests 
of a counti-y. 

Texas has a vast natural wealth, for the most part yet unde- 
veloped, in her rocks and other minerals, in her forests of tim- 
ber trees, and fruit trees, and in her other trees, shrubs, vines, 
plants and flowers, which are objects of ornament and utility. 
We will now attempt to give some account of this wealth. 
Coal and Coal-oil. (See Map 4.) 

There is a bed of lignite that crosses the Sabine River in 
.Shelby county, fifteen or twenty miles below the 32nd degree of 
north latitude, and running south of west through the state. 
It may be seen in the banks of the different rivers. When 
dried it burns as freely as dried wobd. Above this, another 

62 



\ . 



NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 63 



Coal and Coal Oil-^Copper. 



bed of lignite or imperfect coal runs somewhat parallel with 
it through Cass county, through Marion county below Jeffer- 
son, and on through Cherokee county, in the direction of 
Bastrop, near which place it is also found. It is found near 
Fort Belknap, high up on the Brazos, of superior quality ; and 
it is fair to presume that upon that line of altitude it may be 
found clear across the country. It is said to have been found 
in many other places, but there has as yet been no such ex- 
aminations as to establish connected beds of it, correspond- 
ing in direction with the lignite bed referred to. Each bed 
improv^es in quality as it is found to lie further up the countrj^ 
towards the "staked plain." Enough has been ascertained to 
demonstrate that it will be found in abundance in different 
parts of Texas, when it is needed. The oil-spring, as it is 
called, in the Indian Territory, just north of Red River, 
gives promise of coal oil in one of the upper lines of coal that 
passes through Texas. The oil spring, or as it was called by 
the old settlers the "tar spring," within a few miles of San Au- 
gustine, together with other indications on the line of lignite, 
show that coal oil may be found in this state. The oily mat- 
ter that exuded from the "tar spring" was used as tar in 
greasing wagons, and, also, as a remedy for the tooth-ache by 
the early settlers in that section, 

A most remarkable effect is attributed to this oil, that 
exudes from the surface of the earth in the waier upon the 
gulf coast not far west of Sabine Pass. When the beach in 
that locality is unusally lashed by the waves in a storm, the 
oil rises to the surface, and levels it for some distance out from 
the beach. It is said, that this being known to those engaged 
in the coasting trade with small vessels, the place is sought 
as a safe refuge in time of a storm. 

Copper. (See Map 4.) 

Copper ore of good quality is found upon the waters of the 
Wichita Rivers in northern Texas, and has been discovered in 
various places in a large scope of country in that section; 
which, being uninhabited, has not yet been worked. It prom- 
ises great wealth to the state in the future, as it is in close 
proximity to the region of good coal, and will before long be 
reached by railroads. 



64 NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 



Gold & Silver — Iron. 



Gold and Silver. 

Ever since De Soto made his expedition into the territory 
of Texas in search of gold, as it may be imagined, but 
certainly for many years back, there have been rumors circula- 
ted that gold had been, and could be, found high up the rivers 
in Texas. Many have been the attempts to find it, and often 
has a feverish excitement passed through the country, aroused 
by some fresh version of the old tradition, that it certainly 
could then be found. It was said for a time that it was pri- 
vately known to some persons who did not endeavor to open 
the mines, because minerals and salt sprmgs had been retained 
by the state, in pursuance of the Spanish and Mexican cus- 
tom. Still, notwithstanding the late removal of that impedi- 
ment by a provision in the constitution, the gold, if it is there, 
has not been molested. It is probable from the geological 
strata there exposed to the surface, and from other indications, 
that the tradition will still be confirmed. There are the remains 
of a mining establishment in the upper portion of Llano or 
San Saba county, where it is said the Spaniards worked a silver 
mine. There is an ore in Van Zandt county that makes a 
hard, white metal. Doubtless other valuable metals will be 
discovered when the country is settled, and there is sufficient 
labor to dig them out of the earth. 

Iron. 

There is (so to speak) a back-bone ridge, running from 
near the north-east corner of the state, a south-west course, 
passing near Dangerfield, Gilmer, Tyler, and Palestine, through 
Leon county, and continuing in that direction, which abounds 
in iron ore. (See Map 4.) The spurs or branches from this 
extend out in different places, which spread out the iron ore 
region, manifesting itself in iron ore hiWs extensively, over 
what has been heretofore denominated the black-jack belt of 
country in Texas. It has proved to be of good quality in the 
upper edge of Marion county, where it has been worked. 
Extensive arrangements were being made at the close of the 
late civil war to work it in Cherokee and Anderson counties, 
which, however, were never perfected. It is very doubt- 
ful whether there is any stone coal in the vicinity of this 
ore, by which it can be smelted in furnaces. The railroads 



NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 65 

Iron — Rocks. 

that are made, and being made, will obviate that difficulty 
when capital and labor shall have been applied to develop 
this great source of wealth. In the high country, above the 
edge of the mountains and cross-timbers, great abundance of 
iron ore is reported to exist, and there it will be in close prox- 
imity to coal and lime to work it. 

Rocks ; for buildings, fences and other purposes. 
(See Map 4.) 

In the timbered portion of Texas, which is in the eastern 
and south-eastern parts of the state, the rocks are for the 
most part sand stone of some sort, which is not very much 
used for anything. The iron ore-sand stone, though rough, 
is valuable for coarse structures, such as the culverts in rail- 
roads. There is a very fine building rock, underlaying the 
red-lands of eastern Texas, which may be often seen cropping 
out of knobs and abrupt ridges. It is a shell-marl and clay 
cement, of yellow, grey color. It may be easily cut into shape 
when dug out from under the surface, and hardens when ex- 
posed to the air, or to heat. It is extensively used for chim- 
neys, and for jams and backs of brick chimneys, and was the 
material with which was built the famous "old stone house," 
in Nacogdoches, which has stood for a hundred years without 
any apparent damage from exposure to the weather. 

In the prairie portion of Texas, in the west and north-west 
parts of the state, the rocks are, for the most part, some 
species of limestone. Underlaying the soil of the black, limy 
belt below the mountains and cross-timbers, there is a bed of 
white, chalky lime rock, that may be seen in the channels of 
the streams, and sometimes most conspicuously cropping out 
of the bluff-shaped western margin of that belt, which, when 
seen at a distance, has the appearance of rows of white houses. 
It is sawed or cut with an axe, into shape, for building ; and 
it hardens when exposed to the air, assuming a pale, yellowish 
color, and bears and preserves a good face. It is the material 
with which the outside of the capitol of the state at Austin 
is built. It has been used extensively for chimneys, though it 
does not stand the heat of the fire very well. It seems to lie 
in a continuous bed, and is very free from any extraneous 
particles, such as pebbles, shells, or earthy matter that would 



66 NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 

Rocks — Gypsum, Clay, Marl & Sand. 

discolor it, or change its uniformity. The only thing that has 
been noticed, as being incorporated in it, is a very heavy, 
hard, round ball, (perhaps a sulphate of iron) commonly 
called "a sulphur ball," often about the size of a hen's egg. 
(This is most striking evidence that this bed of cretaceous 
limestone was a gradual deposit beneath a deep, swift, and 
powerful current of water, that held the materials of which 
the bed is composed in solution, — the strength of the current 
being sufficient to cast out of its track every other substance, 
except these very heavy balls, which, from their weight, found 
a resting place within it.) 

Above this bed of white, soft, cretaceous limestone, that is, 
up the country from it, the limestone rock becomes harder, 
and less white, being gray, and pale yellow ; often approaching 
the appearance of coarse marble, which is used for building 
houses, chimneys, pavements, and fences. It requires to be 
put into shape with the hammer. It makes good white lime 
when burned. Some little idea of the vast amount of it may 
be acquired, by considering the fact, that the mountains above 
San Antonio, Austin and other places on that line, (which, 
though called mountains, are really nothing but the broken, 
precipitous edge of the high plains above), rise from the bot- 
tom to the top, by layers of flat rock, piled one upon the 
other in regular succession, and often of a thickness appro- 
priate for building purposes, and for pavements. It is difficult 
to imagine how such a supply could be exhausted. Already 
it is beginning to find its way upon the railroads to other parts of 
the country, as an article of commerce. There is marble rock 
of different sorts, not far up the streams from the lower edge 
of the mountains, and in the variety found, there is, in the 
Colorado River above Austin, a most beautiful black marble. 
It is not to be doubted, from what we already know, that a 
geological exploration will give information of many other 
sorts of valuable rocks. 

Gypsu!\i, Clay, Marl and Sand. 

As indicated by the rocks, the timbered region of the east 

is characterized by earths of clay, sand, and marl of various 

sorts, and the prairie region of the west, by earths largely 

composed of limy materials. In both, however, an abundance 



NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 67 

Gypsum, clay, marl and sand. 



of materials is found for making good bricks. There is a 
great deal of superior fine clay, red, yellow and white, in many 
parts of eastern Texas, some of which has long been used for 
making jugs, crocks, and jars ; and during the late war, rude 
plates, cups and saucers were made, and extensively used for 
a time ; which shows what could be done in that field of en- 
terprise, if we had to rely on our own resources. 

In the west, going up the country from the black, limy belt, 
there are beds of gypsum in many localities, and, high up in 
the region of the "staked plain," there is reported to be the 
largest bed of it that is known, covering an area of three to 
four hundred miles square, extending from Texas up into 
New Mexico. When the Texas Pacific railroad shall have 
reached that region an immense mine of wealth wdll be opened 
in Texas, in the supply of plaster of Paris, and manures from 
that bed of gypsum alone. 

Although clay and sand may not be otherwise useful, than 
as constituting a body of earth to collect, retain, and aid the 
chemical action of other materials for fertilization there are, in 
most parts of Texas, sub-soils of clay, marls and c':her admix- 
tures of clay, sand, lime, shells, and other earthy materials, 
that may be dug out, and upon being oxydized, and carbon- 
ized, by exposure to the atmosphere, or by being burned, 
will prove to be useful fertilizers at a cheap cost. Farmers, 
who have good clay sub-soils, must have noticed the increased 
fertility in their fields near clay roots, Adhere the up-rooted 
trees have brought the sub-soil to the surface, and it has for 
several years been exposed to the atmosphere, and been in- 
termixed by cultivation with the surface soil. 

Indeed, as has been previously said, there is some sort of 
good fertilizing material under the soil of every farm, or tract 
of land, that is fertile, or that was originally fertile, that may 
be dug up and utilized as a manure. Some of them are very 
active, and produce their good results immediately, as is the 
case with the lime and chalky-lime substrata of the west, and 
the shell marl of the red-lands of the east. Others, partak- 
ing more of clay and sand, are slow, so that experiment and 
experience must discover the modes by which their effects are 
to be hastened, by artificial means, or by admixtures, as 



68 NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 

Gypsum, clay, marl and sand. 

doubtless they will, when there shall be a greater necessity in 
this country for a knowledge of agricultural chemistry and 
scientific culture. 

There is an exception to the above rule of fertilizing sub- 
strata that it may be well to notice, for the better understand- 
ing of the rule itself, and which may be aptly illustrated by 
reference to tracts of country in the magnolia belt, running 
through the counties of Newton, Jasper, and on westwardly, 
on or about the line of 31 degrees north latitude. 

The tracts referred to are what are called "hammock lands," 
overgrown with a large forest and a thick under-growth, that 
has supplanted the cane-brakes, that originally covered them. 
(Mr. John Bevill, the first settler of Jasper, told me many years 
ago, with a sort of frontier's-man pride, that he cut his way 
through a heavy cane-brake to where the town of Jasper 
is situated, where he then settled.) The sand of the soil is 
deep and coarse, and the sub-soil is a coarse sand, but slightly 
intermixed with a poor yellow clay, which is very similar to 
the earth upon which the long-leaf pine grows in the same 
neighborhood. As the result of such a conformation, it is 
very liable to wash into very deep gullies, and also has ex- 
ceedingly active powers of evaporation, by which the fertil- 
izing materials of the surface, being more volatile than the 
rest, escape into the air and hasten their exhaustion. They 
do not sink, as it is commonly supposed, but fly away upon 
the fast up-rising wings of the atmosphere. Notwithstanding 
this unusual combination of draw-backs to fertility, the sur- 
face soil consists of a deep, rich, sandy loam, that renders 
farms very productive for some years after they are first cleared 
and put into cultivation. In looking about for an explanation 
of this, it is found that these hammock lands are ridges usually 
situated from a few hundred yards to a mile or more wide, 
each side of beautiful clear streams, that are flush all the year 
round, which, by their continuous application of moisture 
along their course for centuries past, have converted what was 
evidently a pine forest into a magnificent growth of oak, 
magnolia, beach, sugar-maple, ash, holly, wild-peach, inter- 
twined with clustering vines, — rivaling the tropics in the splen- 
dor and profusion of their deep green foliage ; and thereby 



NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 69 

Timber, wood and fencing. 



have enriched the surface soil, by the intermixture and decay 
of vegetable matter. Other tracts of country, such as the 
blue-jack sand flats, further north in eastern and middle Texas, 
are subject more or less to the same draw-backs, without the 
same remunerative accompaniment of similar streams of water, 
but w^hich are somewhat relieved from the disadvantage by a 
finer sand and an admixture of better clay sub-soil. Lands of 
this and like character, as well, perhaps, as the thin, shallow 
soiled post-oak lands with coarse, clay sub-soil, that may be 
seen in parts of southern Texas, are injured in their produc- 
tion, by being very deeply turned over with the plow, which 
makes them striking exceptions, in that regard, to any other 
sort of lands in Texas, where there is a richer sub-aoil. 

The great use of a good clay sub-soil in agriculture is, that 
it answers the double purpose of retaining the moisture that 
sinks into it, and holds it in store better than most other 
earths, to be drawn up by evaporation in dry and warm 
weather; and also sends up to the surface, in the process of 
evaporation, fertilizing materials, that are imbedded in it, in 
which the red clays are generally the richest. For the same 
reason, sub- soils of limy materials are very valuable in agri- 
culture. 

Timber, Wood and Fencing. 

The line of division, between the prairies and forests of 
Texas, may, for all practical purposes, be indicated, by a line 
drawn from a point, thirty to fifty miles up Red River from 
the north-east corner of the state, to a point thirty miles west 
of Corpus Christi ; though prairies will be found east, 
and south-east of that line, and bodies and strips of wood 
west of it. 

Post-Oak. — On and near that line is usually found a broad 
belt of post-oak, which may well be deemed the principal 
fencing timber of the prairies, being found in bodies and strips, 
not only on that line, but in large bodies in the cross-timbers, 
and in many other places in most parts of Texas, except in 
the high plains of the far-west. This tree, in most of the 
states eastward of this, is tough, and hard to split into rails. 
Our prairie post-oak, strange to say, splits easily, and, what 
might seem equally strange, split cotton baskets are made 



70 NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 

Red and Black Oaks, Cedar, Pine. 

» ■ ■ 

with it, as a substitute for white-oak sphts usually used for that 

purpose. (See Map No. 5.) 

Red and Black Oaks are also in abundance for fencing 
in many parts of the eastern portion of the state. 

Cedar is extensively used for fencing in many portions 
of the prairie countrj^, as in Dallas, Limestone, Grimes, Wash- 
ington, Bell, and Travis, counties; being abundant upon the 
ledge of mountains above Austin, San Antonio and other 
places. (See Map No. 5.) 

Pine Timber. — Lying just above the belt of the gulf prai- 
rie on the south, and the Sabine River on the east, covering 
an area equal to eighty or one hundred miles square, there is 
a large body of long-leaf pine of superior quality, interspersed 
but sparsely with strips and bodies of other timber. On the 
north of that there are strips and spots of short-leaf pine, that 
may be found in different places, intermixing with the black- 
jack belt, for eighty to one hundred miles on the eastern bor- 
der of the state, which is being rapidly sawed up for home 
consumption, and to supply the prairies, now carried there by 
way of the railroads, and formerly by ox-teams. The great 
body of long-leaf pine, between the Sabine and Trinity 
Rivers, has been comparatively but little consumed. On the 
rivers and other streams, running in and through it, as well 
as some distince above, there are fine bodies of cypress trees, 
which have to some extent been used for shingles, which are 
thought to be more desirable than any others. There are 
great advantages incidentally connected with this large body 
of long-leaf pine and cypress timber. The Sabine, Neches, 
Angelina, and Trinity Rivers are navigable, all the way 
through it, for steamboats, or other craft, for the period of 
from four to eight months in the year, down which, as well as 
down many of their tributaries, during the freshets of winter 
and spring, logs can be rafted into Sabine Bay, where they 
can be stored away for the use (during the whole year) of 
mills, erected on the channel of the Pass, which is five or six 
miles long, upon which a great number of saw-mills and 
shingle mills may be erected, without incurring any great cost 
for the space occupied by them. A thriving business of this 



NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 71 

Hickory and White Oak — Bois D'Arc. 

sort has been carried on for some time past at Orange, situ- 
ated low down upon the Sabine River. (See Map No. 5.) 

Hickory and White-Oak. — Throughout the same region 
of country, and on a strip of country north of it, extending 
out from the eastern border of the state, thirty to forty miles, 
there is on and near the streams, a large quantity of tall, 
thrifty white-oaks, and hickory trees of different sorts, includ- 
ing the scaly-bark hickory, which is very suitable for wagon, 
carriage, barrel and plow timbers ; and which are also so 
situated as to be rafted down the same .streams. It is not 
only of superior quality in fineness of grain, but it is neither 
wind-shaken, nor fractured by the frost of winter, which gives 
it an advantage over the timber of the north. Some of much 
inferior quality is manufactured and sold all over Texas, in 
the shape of wagons and other vehicles, plows, chairs and 
even axe-handles. (See Map No. 5.) 

Bois D'Arc (pronounced Bodark). — This tree grows in a 
belt of country in northern Texas abouttwenty to thirty miles 
wide and over one hundred miles long, reaching from the 
mouth of East Fork, (or as formerly most conmionly called 
"Bois D'Arc Fork") of the Trinity River northwardly to Red 
River. It derives its name, "Bois D'Arc," which means boxv- 
■ti'ood, from the use made of it by the Indians, in making their 
bows. When selected from the young, vigorous trees, the 
wood is strong, tough, hard and extremely elastic ; by all which 
qualities combined together, it is well deserving of the name of 
bow-wood. With their bows made of it, the Comanches kill 
buffaloes in the chase. In its native locality, it is usually a short, 
crooked, or stooping, thorny tree, that does not grow larger 
than the China tree ; but when planted so as to have full room 
to grow, it grows erect in shape, not unlike the apple tree, and 
has leaves much resembling, (though larger than) the 
orange tree, from which it is sometimes called the "osage 
orange." It bears a large, round fruit, called Bois D'Arc 
apple, with seed distributed through it, like those of an 
orange, rather than like those of an apple. The fruit is eaten 
by horses that are accustomed to it. The sap of the wood is 
white, and the heart, being large, is dark red, or reddish 
brown. It is the best wagon timber that is known, at least in 



72 NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 

Bois D'Arc — Live Oak. 

this country, though it may be too brittle for small carriages. 
That, however, has not been sufficiently tested, by using the 
young, vigorous growth, that is not so brittle as the old trees. 
The length of its durability is as yet unknown, as it has not 
yet been known to rot, though long used in wagons, especial- 
ly in the felloes of the wheels ; nor does it weather-wear, as 
oak or other timber, but after twenty years use, and exposure, 
it presents a smooth, undented, sleek surface, as if it had been 
freshly worked over with the plane. It is easily worked when 
green, though very hard when dry-seasoned. Perhaps the 
most remarkable of all of its extraordinar}' qualities is its free- 
dom from shrinkage, by which it may be worked green as 
well as dry. The tire of a Bois D'Arc wheel never has to be 
removed and shortened, though it may stand in the rain and 
sunshine for years. It has, for some years back, been manu 
factured into wagons at Dallas and other places, and so ex- 
cellent is it generally regarded, that the wood-work of a wagon 
sells for double the price of that made with other timber. It 
is being used for ties on the Texas Pacific railroad, for which 
a high price is paid. The seed has been distributed, as an 
article of sale, in this and other states, from which have been 
grown hedges. It will prove a failure for that purpose, except 
to guard against large stock, unless it is continually pruned 
down, simply because it is a tree, and, by its nature, aspires 
upwards, and is not a shrub that is content to nestle its 
spreading branches on and near the ground. It is said that 
its wood makes a good dye. 

A rather lengthy notice has here been taken of this tree; 
because it is believed to be the most valuable timber of this 
country, for the purposes to which it is adapted, excelling all 
others in solidity and durability, for wagons and large carri- 
ages, equalling mahogany for furniture, useful for fencing- 
posts, railroad ties, and various other things; (not omitting 
walking sticks for old men, or others who display that article 
of utility or fancy, ) and that from the facility of propagating 
and growing it, it must ere long attract attention, as a pro- 
duction for an extensive commerce in the timber-markets of 
the world. (See Map No. 5.) 



NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 73 

Live Oak — Pecan. 



Live-Oak. — There is no native live-oak in eastern Texas. 
The eastern margin of the belt of live-oak, running clear 
through Texas from south to north, and back up the country, 
and westwardly for a considerable distance, may be sufficient- 
ly indicated by a line drawn from the mouth of the Brazos 
River, northwardly in the direction of Fort Worth. Low 
down on and near the Brazos, Colorado, and perhaps other 
rivers of southern Texas, it grows large, with wide spreading 
branches, and much of it will be valuable for ship timber. As 
you go further up the country, it becomes less in size, and 
more scrubby, but is there valuable for fire-wood, as it burns 
well, and produces very great heat. A remarkable circum- 
stance may be noticed, in relation to the facility with which 
this wood when dry, (as well as the elm, which also is plenti- 
ful in the west,) will slowly but certainly burn without a flame 
(one piece of it, by itself, being ignited,) until the entire piece 
is consumed ; whereas, in eastern Texas, the oak and elm there 
grown require the aid of dry pine, or light-wood, or other 
such appliances, to make it burn at all, thereby, even the wood, 
in the process of burning, announcing the great difference in 
the dryness of the climate in the western and eastern portions 
of Texas. 

Pecan. — This tree grows abundantly in the bottoms of 
the Trinity, and of other rivers west of that in Texas, and also 
in some places on and near other smaller streams. Its nuts 
are gathered, and have already become profitable, as an object 
of commerce. It is not perceived why many of our rich 
bottoms, that are too low for cultivation, might not be cleared 
up and planted in pecan trees with great profit, except that 
the time has not yet arrived for any of us to make so long a 
loan without the interest being annually paid. A good finan- 
cier, (Frost Thorn, of Nacogdoches,) once said, that if he 
could restore the pecan trees that once stood upon his Red 
River plantation, (near Nachitoches in Louisiana) he would 
prefer them to his cotton farm. He must, of course, be under- 
stood, not that they would have yielded more money than the 
cotton farm, but more in proportion to the risk, and to the 
capital invested. Fruit growing in cultivated orchards, has 



74 NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 

Musquite — Hedges. 

long since taught that lesson in the northern states and is 
slowly beginning to teach it here, 

Musquite. — This is emphatically the tree of the prairies of 
Texas. It is rapidly increasing, and spreading over them in 
many places. The old trees, standing often in clusters on the 
prairie, present, at a little distance, very much the appearance 
of an old neglected apple orchard. It, in its leaves and 
thorns, is something like the black-locust, and, like it, bears a 
bean which horses are fond 9f. The tree can die and dr)^ up, 
but it seems almost impossible for it to decay. When dead 
and dry, its toughness and solidity remind one of buck's-horns. 
When ignited it makes a most intense heat, and is used, 
when used at all, principally for fuel ; and will most likely 
prove to be the very best wood that can be grown in the west 
for fuel, when it shall become necessary there to engage in 
wood growing. It will prove to be a most valuable timber 
for carriages, chairs, and other small fabrics, when properly 
tried. 

Hedges. — One of the early necessities of Texas is a good 
material for hedges. The money-value of fences of the ordi- 
nary kind, whether made of rails or planks, during a century, 
is so great as to astonish any one who has not made some 
estimate of it. The difference between the expense of them 
and good permanent hedges, made out of the proper material, 
would build every farmer in the state a comfortable, neat 
dwelling, educate his children, work the roads of the neigh- 
borhoods, and build their school houses and churches. And 
should fencing for farms be abolished entirely by law, which 
will not be found practical in a sparsely settled country, still 
there will be a great deal of fencing required for lots, gardens, 
orchards, vineyards and pastures. The qualities to be sought 
in selecting the materials for hedges, are durability or lon- 
gevity in growth ; facility of propagation ; a tendency to grow 
near the ground (as a shrub, not shedding its lower limbs, as it is 
the nature of most forest trees to do); and the production of 
thorns or stubbed branches. These requirements are met with 
to a considerable extent in the largest species of the prickly 
pear of western Texas, which will grow both in the dry and 
in the wet portions of the state, is easily kept from spreading. 



NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 75 

Musquite — SurryiC — Persimmon Tree. 

is little or no expense in pruning, is adorned in spring with a 
flower, and bears fruit containing much saccharine matter, that 
may be made useful, and upon a necessity for it, it may be 
charred in the fire and fed to oxen. It is also said to have val- 
uable medicinal properties. It may be too slow in its growth 
to make hedges quickly. Perhaps the most useful hedge 
growth that has been tried in Texas is the Peracanthus. It 
is a sort of dwarfish hawthorn. It grows as a shrub, cluster- 
ing near the ground, and abounds in sharp thorns. It is easily 
trimmed and kept in proper shape and size for a hedge. It 
is also quite ornamental, having thick green foliage, with 
blossoms and red berries at the proper seasons. There is a 
great variety of scrubby hawthorns in eastern Texas, and of 
other thorny shrubs in western Texas, from which it is alto- 
gether probable that a proper selection can be made, when 
the wants of the country shall demand sufficient attention to 
the subject. I suggest the Agrita for a trial. 

Sumac of the red and white species grows abundantly ; 
which, besides being a good dye in its berries, fur- 
nishes leaves, which, when dried in the shade and mixed with 
tobacco, makes the famous Kinikinick, — that fuming luxury 
of the American Indian, that solaced his taciturnity in his 
forest solitude. It is very pleasant for the white people now, 
who smoke their pipes. 

Persimmon Tree. — This tree grows abundantly in eastern, 
middle and southern Texas. It seldom grows larger than an 
apple tree, though much taller. It bears a round, red fruit, 
larger than a common plum, and less than a common peach. 
It ripens just before frost in the fall, and is very sweet. It bears 
well when grown in an open place, especially around the edge 
of a pond, which is then almost certain to be a place of resort 
for boys in the day time, and of opossums at night. It makes 
a fine beer which retains the peculiar taste of the fruit. The 
seeds are large compared to the size of the fruit. This leads 
to a singular, if not very difficult, inquiry. If an old bottom 
field, rather wet for cultivation, is thrown out, there will, in 
one or two years, come up all over it millions of persimmon 
bushes. The same thing will sometimes occur in up-land 
fields with the sassafras whose seeds are also large. The 



76 NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 

Persimmon Tree — Papaw Tree — Mast. 

quaere is, how do all these bushes germinate so soon? At an 
early day in Texas, at the hospitable mansion of a Methodist 
preacher, (Dr. Ford, of Newton county), the writer heard an 
interesting discussion on this subject by a number of itinerant 
clergymen, who gave their various observations and experi- 
ences upon it, in the different countries in which they had 
traveled. Besides the persimmon and sassafras, one told of 
having seen a spontaneous growth of tobacco, and another of 
poke-root, and another of something else, until they were 
brought to consider the text of Scripture: "And the earth 
brought forth grass and herb, yielding seed after his kind, and 
the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind." 
The qucere^ notwithstanding, still exists. 

Papaw Tree. — The papaw is a small tree growing in the 
mellow, sandy soil of the creek bottoms of the eastern border 
of Texas, It bears a large, round, long fruit, shaped some- 
thing like the banana, that is much relished by children, being 
very sweet. Its wood, when dry, is very light, — the young 
trees making fine how-helves, simply by skinning them, which 
is easily done, as the bark peels off like that of the young 
hickory in the spring. The fruit, like that of the persimmon, 
has a large seed through it, which would render it easy to be 
propagated. It contains, also, like that of the persimmon, 
much saccharine matter, will make good beer and vinegar, and 
when distilled a most palatable liquor. When it shall be as- 
certained, (and fully practiced upon) that the true philosophy 
of life consists in moderation in the use of all the good and 
serviceable things of earth, enforced by moral self-restraint, 
some of our useless, sandy creek and river bottomis that over- 
flow, may be cleared up and planted in pappaw and persimmon 
trees, as well as pecan trees, that will bring their crops of 
fruit annually, without the labor and expense of plowing, 
hoeing and fencing, and thereby, and by some such means, a 
large amount of lands in all parts of the country, may be 
utilized, that can never be cultivated in ordinary crops. 

Mast. — We have, wherever there are forests, mast-bearing 
trees, both for sweet, and for bitter mast; and when it "hits," 
it fattens the hogs, and brings great quantities o^ pigeons and 
black-birds. It was in former times much depended on, but 



NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 77 



Other Ti;es, Plants and Flowers — Cordage — Bear Grass. 



now good farmers may be heard to say that "the best mast 
falls in the crib." 

Other Trees, Plants and Flowers. — There are in Texas 
walnut, cherry, sweet-gum, holly, besides pine, suitable for 
furniture ; black-locusts, mulberry, cedar, boxwood, elm, red- 
oak, and water-oak for shade, ornament, and other uses. In- 
deed we have in Texas all the forest trees common to other 
states of the south, except chestnut and poplar trees, which, 
as a native growth, are not to be found in Texas at all. We 
have plenty of Chinkapin trees in eastern Texas, very much 
resembling chestnuts trees in its timbers and nuts, though it 
is not so large as the chestnut. There are a few places west 
of the Mississippi River, immediately near the edge of its 
bottom, where the poplar tree grows, — for instance on Craw- 
ley's ridge, in Arkansas, on Little River, on a ridge in the 
bottom near Evergreen, and on the Cortobla Bayou near 
Washington in Louisiana. It is believed that there are no 
wild crab-apple trees, or hazel-nut trees in this state. There 
are a great variety of wild plums, as the dwarf or hog plum, 
the common wild plum, also the slough plum ; also of haw- 
trees, black and red, including the rare, large, red may-haw, 
that grows in ponds, and has the taste of the apple ; also wild 
cherry, and the honey-locust, all of which trees, when they 
grow abundantly, are good indications for orchard-fruits. We 
have also wild strawberries, blackberries, dewberries, hurtle- 
berries, wildcherries and mulberries. Of flowering trees, we 
have the magnificent evergreen magnolia, whose large white 
flower bursts forth amidst its sleek, green foliage to greet the 
coming summer with its delightful fragrance ; the dogwood, 
and the white ash relieve the dark aspect of the leafless for- 
est, when the first warmth of spring clothes them with robes 
of white flowers. There are also the red bud, honey-suckle, 
elder, haw, plum, black-locust, mountain-ivy, and many 
other flowering shrubs and vines. The forests, not covered 
with under-brush, and the open prairies teem with a rich pro- 
fusion of flowers, of every imaginable color, during most of 
spring, summer and fall, some of which would be considered 
rarely beautiful, if cultivated in flower-gardens. 

Cordage — Bear Grass. — Texas has had use for a great 



78 NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 

Medicinal Trees, Plants and Vines — Wood Growing, 

many ropes ; and it is to be hoped she will not need so many 
hereafter. Bear grass grows in large bunches, and looks 
something like a coarse grass. It is usually found on deep, 
sandy ridges or flats. Its blades have a long, fine fiber, that 
would make the best of ropes. It has been used to hang 
meat and is very strong. 

Medicinal Trees, Plants and Vines. — We have a large 
variety of trees, shrubs, plants and vines, possessed of useful 
medicinal properties, as button willow, dog-wood, cherry, 
prickly-ash, black-haw, slippery-elm, sassafras, fever or flux- 
weed, wild camamile, bone-sett, sarsaparilla, mullin, yellow- 
dock, jerusalem-oak, polkberry, Jamestown weed, rattle snake's 
master, mayapple, and others. They were used by the In- 
dians, and by the early settlers, before the time of drug stores, 
for the cure of the prevalent diseases of this country, for 
which many of them seem to be pre-eminently fitted ; being 
one of the innumerable evidences of the wisdom and good- 
ness of the Creator, in providing antidotes for all the ills to 
which man is subject from the natural causes surrounding him, 
in any locality. 

Wood Growing. — When wood growing for fuel, and other 
purposes, shall become necessay in this country, the natural 
growth of each section will readily point out to the careful 
and intelligent observer, what will there best succeed. In 
most parts of Texas the China tree, the Tree of Paradise, the 
black-locust, catalpa, and the Bois D'Arc, will be found use- 
ful from their rapid growth, and facility of propagation. The 
China tree has many other useful qualities. Alive or dead 
it makes lasting fencing-posts. It furnishes a dense green 
shade until late in the fall, when the foliage of other trees 
fade and become thin. When sawed, it makes fine furniture 
of beautiful color. The inside bark of its roots make a good 
vermifuge. Its berries contain an oil, which, when mixed 
with lamp-black, makes a good, shiny blacking for shoes 
or harness. Its leaves, thrown in a crib, and scattered among 
the corn while it is being gathered, is a preventive against 
wevil. And last, though we should not make it least, it is 
beautiful to look upon, especially the umbrella china. The 
China and the black-locust, the catalpa and Bois D'Arc, may 



NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 79 

Wood Growing. 



be propagated by the seed. The Tree of Paradise will readily 
spread by the roots over an old field, when planted there. 
The China tree may be planted on the fence- row eight feet 
apart around a farm, and in a few years its body will serve 
for fence posts, and being kept topped twelve or fifteen feet 
high, its limbs will furnish fire-wood. This has been success- 
fully tried in Louisiana, and is so obviously practicable, that 
the most prudent farmer might well venture to try the experi- 
ment in Texas. 

It is probable that, in the western portion of Texas, the 
native musquite tree will be the most certain growth to sup- 
ply wood, and it also can be propagated by the seed. The 
primitive forest of a country is worthy of a careful study, not 
only for the useful lessons in agriculture, but also for the expan- 
sive conceptions, and delightful sensations, to which it invites 
the contemplative mind ; and also for the intrinsically useful 
lessons that it practically teaches to the careful observer. It 
has every diversity of color and shape, with its forms and 
brilliancy so mellowed and modified as to be pleasing to the 
eye, and gratifying to the sense of the beautiful. It lifts itself 
upwards from its mother earth, with its own self-developing 
process, by the tendency of the life-sap to climb to the top, 
and the consequent shedding of the lower limbs, — each tree 
in its growth, accommodating itself to its surrounding fellows, 
yet each struggling for self elevation and expansion, resulting 
all together in the presentation of one grand harmonious com- 
bination. The aged patriarch of the forest is seen to exhibit 
decay at the top ; the sapling near by vigorously rises up, 
sending all its force through its slender form to the aspiring 
top, — first, to reach the unimpeded warmth and light, that, 
when reached, will then surely expand its growth, to supplant its 
declining seniors. Two trees, standing in close proximity, by 
mutual accommodation, will form but one in outline. These 
analogies to human life, and social existence, — too obvious to 
require specification, may be indefinitely multiplied ; and 
they show that all growth, all development, all animate ag- 
gregations in combination, are dependent upon general laws 
of universal application. 

The forest indicates the general character of the climate. 



8o NATURAL SOURCES OF WEALTH. 

Wood Growing. 

and of the soils. It shows where one spot is too wet, or 
another too dry for cultivation, and it gives accurate notice 
of the approach, arrival and passage of the seasons of the 
year. It will tell the farmer when to plant his crops, and 
that, too, with a reasonable certainty, not dependent upon 
speculation or plausible appearance. Take, for instance, a 
standard growth, (that is, in eastern Texas, we may select the 
red-oak as the tree commonly growing over the country,) its 
budding out will tell when to plant corn. The farmer may 
be misled, by a few days of open, bright weather, to suppose 
that spring-time has come, but not so with the tree, because 
it is moved to renewed life, and action, from its winter bound 
dormancy, by the general average warmth pervading the at- 
mosphere and the earth. Thus it is, that we are continually 
finding, associated together, the beautiful, the elevating, and 
the useful, in the works of Nature. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Natural Wealth as Fdund in Its Waters. 



The natural wealth of Texas, as found in its waters. For common use their 

quality in different parts of the countrj-. Mineral waters of medicinal vir- 
tues. The sour lake, and Lampassas springs, &c. Salines in the east and 
in the west. Water power — very great in the west and some in the east. 
For navigation — extent and character of. Coast canal — its advantages and 
practicability. For fish, oysters, &c., very good. 

Wild game. Buffalo an I : ^Ik disappeared. Deer, Turkeys, Prairie hens, Par- 
tridges, &c., Bears, Panthers, Wolves, &c., determine the natural fertility of a 
country — the reason. Other animals, and some beautiful birds. 

Atmospheric benefits — in wind power, in health, in production of crops, and in 
increased capacity to labor physically and intellectually. 

Canes and reeds, as food for stock and for market particularly in the south and 
east. 

Grasses. For natural pastures. The musquite grass in the west ; the milo grass 
in the east, and others. Why pasturage is so beneficial to a country, how it 
may be secured, and the immense profit it is and has been to western Texas. 
The reason why dry countries are the best for grazing. 



There is still a variety of other things pertaining to the 
natural qualities and resources of Texas that deserve some 
further notice — consisting of its waters, for common use, for 
medicinal virtues, for making salt, for mechanical force, for 
navigation and for raising fish. And in the same connection 
some attention may be given to its atmospheric benefits, its 
native quadrupeds, birds, its canes and reeds, grasses and 
pests. 

Water for Common Use. 

As a natural consequence of the prevailing rocks, earth 
and soil, the water of both springs and wells in the two 
great divisions of the state, is for the most part very different, 
— that in the east being mostly freestone, and that in the 
west, limestone. 

In eastern Texas there are numerous springs, from the fact 
that the pulverization capacity of the earth, of both soil and 
sub-soil, being of a high order of excellence, the rain that 
6 8i 



82 WEALTH AS FOUND IN ITS WATERS. 

Water for common use. 

falls abundantly in the winter and spring can sink, so as to 
furnish an ample supply of water for the springs and wells 
during the whole year. The spring water generally is warmer 
than that of the wells, and is regarded as not so heathful. 
Neither can it be said to be very cold in summer. Much of it, 
particularly that of the wells, that are usually from twenty to 
thirty feet deep, is cool and palatable. Some of it is very 
pure and "soft," as indicated by its washing well. In some 
places it is "hard," and is tinctured more or less with some 
mineral taste, partaking of the earth where it is situated. In 
the main, however, eastern Texas is a well watered country, 
it being practicable to dig wells in all parts of it where there 
are no springs to be used. In some portions of it, in the line 
of the "black-jack belt," there are wells of strong alum water, 
as in Houston, Smith, Upshur, and perhaps in other counties. 
In the eastern and southern portions of the prairies of north- 
ern, middle and southern Texas, including the "black, limy 
belt," there are but few springs. The soil generally being of 
a firm, compact nature, composed more or less of limy ma- 
terials, the rain-water cannot sink so deeply as it does in the 
timbered sections of the east, but either runs off, or is evap- 
orated by the winds that almost continually fan the surface of 
the earth; and, therefore, that whole region is scarce of water, 
which induces a resort to wells, cisterns and tanks. Some of 
the well water is good ; most of it, however, like that of the 
springs there, is too much affected by the limy earth ; and 
some of the wells, in certain places, where gypsum or any 
other mineral substances are intermixed with the lime, furnish 
water that tastes (as well as I can imagine) very much as if 
the contents of an apothecary shop had been emptied into it, 
as was the case with the artesian well at Austin also. Leav- 
ing that region and approaching the mountains, there are 
some very large, bold running springs of pure lime water, 
that evidently come from some distant source, somewhat on 
the principle of the artesian well, whose water flows out of the 
top of the well. Amongst them may be mentioned the bluff 
spring at Waco, on the Brazos, the spring at Salado, the 
Barton springs near Austin, the San Marcus spring, and the 
spring near San Antonio. Most of the country, however, 



WEALTH AS FOUND IN ITS WATERS. 83 

Mineral Waters of Medicinal Virtues. 



above the lower edge of the mountains and cross-timbers, 
and south and south-west of San Antonio, there is a scarcity 
of water. High up on some of the branches of the Red 
River and Brazos, that come from the gypsum bed of that 
region, it is said to be disagreeably bitter, or brackishly bitter. 
Through all that high plain region there are springs and 
ponds, as indicated on our maps, and the more the country 
is explored the more good water has been found. It is now 
believed, also, that water can be got by digging shallow wells 
in most of that country. 



Mineral Waters of Medicinal Virtues. 

There are chalybeate springs in most parts of eastern 
Texas. There are sulphur springs in Lampassas, Grimes, 
Sabine, Smith, Upshur, Rusk and Cass counties, and perhaps 
in many other counties of Texas. There is the Sour Lake 
in Hardin, and the sour spring in Sabine county, and a sour 
well in Caldwell county, south of Austin. 

The sour lake is situated on the level gulf prairie, be- 
tween the Neches and Trinity Rivers, and its waters are re- 
garded to be highly remedial in cutaneous diseases, chronic 
sores, and the like. It has been a place of considerable resort 
for a number of years past in the summer season. The Lam- 
passas springs, situated about seventy-five or eighty miles 
northwardly from Austin, and about the s-ame distance west- 
wardly from Waco, is perhaps the largest body of sulphur 
water in the United States, and is said to be of good quality. 
Located in an elevated region of high hills and plains, and 
beautiful valleys, distant from any large water courses, and 
free from all miasmatic influences, with a free circulation 
of pure, dry atmosphere, it must in time become one 
of the most celebrated watering places on this continent. 
It, with its surroundings, is particularly adapted to the 
wants of the careworn and debilitated merchant, and 
professional man of our southern coast cities, who will 
be almost certain to be rejuvenated by a season spent at the 
Lampassas springs. Nor will it be any the less beneficial to 
our ladies of the south, whose constitutions have been ener- 



84 WEALTH AS FOUND IN ITS WATERS. 



Saline Waters — Water Power. 



vated by their cares or pleasures, or by the too frequent habit 
of spending their whole lives in one locality. It has long 
been resorted to by invalids to some extent, almost every 
summer, though not as it deserves to be, for it is destined to 
become a fashionable resort. 

Saline Waters. 
There are quite a number of salines in eastern Texas. The 
Grand Saline, or as it has formerly been called, Jordan's Saline, 
in Van Zandt county, Steene Saline in the northern part of 
Smith county, Neches Saline near the Neches River, near 
the line between Cherokee and Smith counties, and the An- 
gelina Saline, in the southern part of Nacogdoches. They have 
all been worked, and the Grand Saline is still in operation. 
It is a flat, level basin, about a mile square, and shallow wells 
can be sunk in almost any part of it that furnishes salt water, 
and some of them are very strongly impregnated with salt. 
During the late war there were thirty or forty furnaces in full 
blast upon this saline ; and furnished salt for a large section of 
the state. There are some ponds or lakes in south-western 
Texas, on or near the coast, which have been resorted to for 
salt from the earliest times in the settlement of Texas. The 
salt is deposited in them by evaporation, and when they dry 
up on the edges the salt is dug up from the bed of the lakes. 
There are also other salines in the up-country of western 
Texas which, however, have not as yet attracted much atten- 
tion. 

Water Power. 
In western Texas the streams that run out of the moun- 
tains, and some of them that burst out at or near the foot of 
the mountains, furnish, as it is believed, a large amount of 
water power that could be easily brought into operation. 
Factories established there would have the great advantage of 
being in close proximity to the cotton, wool, and cheap pro- 
visions, and in a mild, dry, healthful cHmate where operatives 
could work with comfort every day in the year, and without 
the expense of fire, except a short time at intervals during 
winter. In south-eastern Texas, in the counties of Newton, Jas- 
per, Tyler, and also in others in the same section, there are never 
failing streams, some of them large, bold creeks, that would 



WEALTH AS FOUND IN ITS WATERS. 85 

Water Power — Water for Navigation. 

furnish a great deal of water power, in the midst of a cotton 
country, in which, also, at present there is a great deal of pine 
timber that could be sawed by them. There is water power 
now being used for "over-shot" mills and gins, on both sides 
of the Sabine River, in the counties of Smith, Rusk, Upshur, 
and Harrison. Indeed there can be water mills erected in 
most parts of the timbered portions of eastern Texas, and in 
early times most of the meal used in families was ground on 
them. The introduction of steam mills, of late years, has 
prevented their erection in many places where they could be 
erected. Water power for machinery, when it can be controlled 
properly, is by far the cheapest of any kind, and that which 
we have in Texas is (much of it) so fine, and connected with 
such extraneous advantages, that it must, before long, begin 
to be appreciated as very valuable to the country. 
Water for Navigation. 
Nearly all of our rivers, from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, 
are generally navigable for steamboats during about half the 
year, for a distance above their mouths, — some of them one 
hundred and fifty miles by land. There have been from time 
to time efforts made by the state to improve their navigation, 
mainly by having the over-hanging trees cut. Two reasons 
may be assigned why these rivers have never been as bene- 
ficial to commerce, nor as much used, as rivers of the same 
size in other countries. The first is, that usually their lowest 
stage of water is in the fall of the year, often continuing up 
to Christmas or longer, during which time cotton farmers get 
their cotton crop out, and desire to send it to market, or, if 
they sell it at home, country merchants cannot well delay the 
sending of it off to market. Secondly, that the ports, at the 
mouths of the rivers, are not generally such as would readily 
encourage the building of towns, or cities, of a size to become 
markets for the produce of the country. Galveston is, as 
yet, the only city upon our coast that can aspire to the posi- 
tion of a market, from which cotton is shipped to foreign 
ports direct. As the state becomes more densely settled, 
adjoining to those navigable rivers, the cheapness of 
water-transportation will certainly cause them to be used to 
much greater benefit than they have been. 



86 WEALTH AS FOUND IN ITS WATERS. 

Coast Canal — Waters for Raising Fish. 

Coast Canal. 

The line of bays upon our coast could easily be connected 
by canals, so as to have an inland channel of navigation from 
the mouth of the Rio Grande to that of the Sabine ; which, 
indeed, might be extended to New Orleans and Mobile, and 
perhaps further. The saving in the diminished loss of coast- 
ing vessels, and in insurance, apart from the great advantage 
in time of war, would certainly be a large item in the com- 
merce of this state. This project of an inland channel of navi- 
gation upon our coast has long been spoken of in Texas as 
desirable and practicable, but too large to be undertaken by 
Texas. The subject has lately been favorably presented to 
the congress of the United States, as one of national im- 
portance, and we may hope that it will be so deemed, when 
Texas has ceased to be a far-off-country, in a few years to 
come. 

Waters for Raising Fish. 

In the beautiful, clear creeks and other streams of the west, 
there are very fine fish, consisting of trout, blue cat, Gasper- 
gew, and others. In the more sluggish streams of the east, 
there are the buffalo, yellow and blue cat, trout, sucker, and 
perch ; and, perhaps, the finest of all of them is the large 
white perch. Fishes are more abundant in the rivers, and in 
the creeks near the rivers, as you go downwards from their 
heads towards the coast. It may be worthy of notice that 
during the summer of the year 1874 the agent for that ser- 
vice in the government of the United States, has deposited 
in Jthe Brazos and Colorado Rivers, a large number of small 
shad-fish. Fishy importations into Texas have not hereto- 
fore been thought to be beneficial, but it is to be hoped that 
this one of real shad-fish will be more so. It is worthy of 
remark, that there is something in the soil, climate, and, it 
may be in the waters, too, of Texas, that exotics of any kind, 
imported into this country from a distance require a good, 
long acclimation before they succeed well, and many, even 
after that ordeal, entirely fail. 

On our coast, we have turtles, oysters, crabs, lobsters, the 
red fish, flounders, and others, pronounced to be of good 
quality by those who are skilled in a knowledge of that sort 



WEALTH AS FOUND IN ITS WATERS. 87 

Water for Raising Fish — Wild Game. 

of diet. Occasionally a Jew-fish, weighing several hundred 
pounds, becomes stranded on the coast, and is taken by the 
fishermen, who sell it at a high price, as a great delicacy, as. 
we learn from the newspapers that are almost certain to pub- 
lish such an event. 

Now, as fish diet is said, according to scientific -investiga- 
tions, to have been found to be one of the best foods for de- 
veloping the brain, and consequently for fostering intellectual 
power, it might be well, on that account, as well as on account 
of the cheapness of raising or amusement in catching fish, to 
pay more attention to the subject than has heretofore been 
given to it in Texas. Dr. Franklin said, that the best hook to 
fish with was a silver hook. Patrick Henry, it seems, did not 
think so. However that may be, it is certain that most people 
like to eat fish, and that there is a reasonably good supply of 
them to be obtained in most of the settled portions of Texas. 
The Texas Legislature at the session of 1874 exhibited 
their due appreciation of this subject by the passage of a law 
to prevent the catching of fish, so as to retard their increase. 
Now we have a fish commissioner. 

Wild Game. 

In common with other states, east and north of Texas, the 
Elk and the Bison, commonly called, "Buffalo," roamed over 
our forests and prairies formerly ; but they have long since 
disappeared from the portions of the country which are set- 
tled. The deer is our largest game, and is still plentiful in 
eastern Texas and in some parts of the west. There are 
three modes of killing them, that have prevailed ; one by fire- 
liunting in the dark nights, by shining their eyes, which was 
in early times much resorted to as a means of securing veni- 
son for food, and the hides for market. Another mode is that 
of still hunting by persons singly, which is the old Indian 
mode, the success of which depends much upon a stealthy 
step and a quick eye. White men have hardly ever reached 
the proficiency of the Indian in this ; for the Indian does not 
load his gun until he sees the deer, and then practices his 
arts as a business, and not as a pastime, until he kills the 
game. The other mode is that of driving with hounds and 
horns ; which mode is an English importation, in which usu- 



88 WEALTH AS FOUND IN ITS WATERS. 

Wild Game. 

ally a number of persons engage by taking stands at differ- 
ent places, where it is supposed the deer will run in the drive. 
It is a very exciting amusement, and is much practiced in the 
spring and summer, particularly in the timbered portions of 
Texas. When the deer get scarce in one section, the old 
hunters often get up a party of hunters, and go off a day's 
ride or further, and have what is called a camp-hunt for a 
week or more. Now that we have railroads, we may expect 
hunters from the older states to make raids upon our deer, and 
other game ; and therefore it might be well to protect them, 
as well as the fish, during time of raising, if we desire to pre- 
serve the wild game of the state from extermination. 

We have also turkeys, that are hunted at the break of day, 
in the early spring, which is the gobbling season. We have 
also partridges that raise about the farms, and are caught in 
nets. In the prairies we have also the prairie-hen, which is 
very similar to the partridge, except that it is in size about 
halfway between a partridge and a tame guinea. Geese, brant, 
and ducks are abundant on our rivers, and near the coast in 
winter, and often wild geese may be seen in the green wheat 
fields in our prairies during the winter. Wild pigeons and 
black-birds, in large numbers, visit us in the fall and winter, 
wherever they can find acorns. The wild pigeons establish a 
roost to which they return at night, after having gone during 
the day a great distance in search of food. They continue 
to come long after dark, and crowd one upon another on the 
limbs of trees and bushes, so as to bend and even break them 
down ; keeping up a noise all the time that makes the woods 
roar. Persons go with torches and sticks and kill as many as 
they want. In former times there were pigeon roosts in the 
pine woods in the western part of Upshur county, and near 
the line between Shelby and San Augustine counties. 

We have a great many beautiful birds that make our for- 
ests and groves resonant with their music at certain seasons 
of the year, both day and night, particularly in the spring. 
Out of a great many that would interest the ornithologist, 
only four will be mentioned. The mockingbird, like the bee, 
follows civilization westward, and actually seems to await the 
opening of large farms, and the erection of good painted 



WEALTH AS FOUND IN ITS WATERS. 89 

Wild Game. 

houses, before they inhabit the country. The long-forked- 
tail bird of Paradise, (as it is called,) of the prairies, though 
not noted for singing, has a most varied and delicately beauti- 
ful plumage. Also the Chaperal cock of the west is a beau- 
tiful bird. It is very wild, and inclines to run off like a turkey, 
rather than fly, in escaping from your presence. The Parra- 
keet of south-eastern Texas gives a harsh, grating squall in 
its rapid flight, always seen in small numbers, but never singly, 
dashing through and around the tops of the trees, is also a 
bird of beautiful colors of green and yellow or pale red. 

Cities and towns on the gulf are well supplied with water- 
fowls in the market, those not having a fishy taste being dis- 
tinguished by their not having black legs. It is much more 
agreeable to eat bird and fish separately ; so it is turkey and 
wild onions. In parts of eastern Texas, beef and milk are 
both rendered unfit for use by the weed, as it is called, being, 
as it is supposed, something that cattle eat, but which has 
never yet been certainly ascertained. The taste of the milk 
that has the weed is not describable, because it is like noth- 
ing else to compare it with. It is simply bad ; and so bad 
that the milk cannot be well used. It can be disguised by 
eating onions before drinking it. It is not known to be un- 
healthful when used. As to what it is, has long been and 
still is a mystery. We have bears, wolves, coons, opos- 
sums, squirrels, rabbits, foxes and peccaries or wild Mexican 
hogs, The hunting of the wild boar, so famous a sport 
in ancient times, and even yet in parts of Asia, was 
never very fascineting to Texans. These little hogs 
are vet}- fierce, and when rallied pour out in a swarm 
from their dens often of large, hollow logs, and climbing a tree 
just then is a much better defence than spears, guns or dogs. 
It is something like fighting hornets, in which bravery is at a 
great disadvantage, and never wins laurels. Bears are fast 
disappearing as the cattle eat up the cane-brakes that they 
inhabit, to the great discontent of a few old remaining 
bear hunters, who now are left to fight their cane-brake bat- 
tles over at their chimney corners, to the shuddering astonish- 
ment of younger folks. Fox-hunting, so inspiring in the old 



go WEALTH AS FOUND IN ITS WATERS. 

Wild Game — Atmosphere. 

countries, never took hold of the fancy of the youths of 
Texas to any great extent. Why should it ? To follow that 
one must get up of a cold, frosty morning, two hours before 
daylight, mount a restless horse, blow a horn around through 
the woods, and if the hounds should make a start, and open 
out on trail, tear head-long through thickets and thorns, 
round and round, half frozen, lashed by the bushes and at 
last be held by others at a discount for not being up at the 
fight and death, five miles off, at sun up. Why not rather, in 
the pleasant part of the day, chase and larriat cattle and 
horses upon the open plain, for some useful purpose, — inter- 
mixing exhilarating exercise with practical business. Or 
if what is considered more genteel amusement be sought, 
there is the mule-eared rabbit of our prairies, that, with a 
pack of grey hounds after him, is so fleet as to fill the full 
measure of the idea, as commonly expressed, "of running 
like a blue streak." This may be said to be the chief horse- 
back sport in western and northern Texas, in which many 
of our ladies as well as gentlemen dehght to engage, as 
driving for deer is, as followed by the gentlemen in the east. 

Attention is called to the great abundance of fishes, fowls, 
and quadrupeds both carniverous and herbiverous, in part, to 
illustrate more fully the fact of the prolific fruitfulness of the 
natural productions of this country. Wolves, panthers, bears, 
cats and foxes do not live on air, nor can they live long in a 
barren desert. Their abundance or scarcity in any unsettled 
country is a correct index to its natural productiveness ; sim- 
ply because their subsistence depends upon the number of 
herbiverous animals, that can subsist during all seasons of the 
year. 

Atmosphere. 

This may seem, to those who have not closely examined 
the subject, to be a strange item, in recounting the natural 
advantages of a country. Nevertheless it is true, that it has a 
positive value in Texas, not only as a power to be profitably 
used in machinery, but also in the personal comfort, health, 
and vigor of its inhabitants, in their power of protracting 
labor, either physical or intellectual, and even in the increased 
production of crops. This great advantage pertains peculiar- 




J- 



WEALTH— SOURCES OF. 91 

Atmosphere. 

\y to the prairie section, increasing in some of its beneficial 
effects, as in going north-west, the country gets higher and 
dryer. 

Under the influence of the healthful, dr>'' atmosphere of 
the high plains, interspersed with rich valleys in all that part 
of Texas, reaching far above the lower edge of the moun- 
tains, and cross-timbers, a vigorous race of men will be reared, 
who will some day largely control the destinies of this great 
state, and who, in their power, mental as well as physical, 
will demonstrate the fact, that a nation's wealth consists in the 
quality of men and women reared in it, as well as in the qual- 
ity of its crops in agriculture. Suppose a factory should be 
erected upon any of the western streams that pour down from, 
or burst out of, the mountains, laborers in them, under the 
influence of the almost constant flow of pure, dry atmosphere, 
can labor with comfort from one to two hours in the day 
longer than they can east of the Mississippi River. 

In intellectual labor the same benefit is readily appreciated. 
There is a marked difference in that respect, even between 
western and eastern Texas, off of the coast some distance. 
Leibeg, who is perhaps the highest authority in the science of 
agricultural chemistry, informs us that a very large propor- 
tion of all cultivated plants are built up by nutrition furnished 
by the instrumentality of the atmosphere. This principle is 
plainly illustrated in Texas, by the wild growth, as in the large 
cactus of the west. And it is on this principle, in part, that 
the very best wheat grown in Texas is upon the high, fertile 
ridges in the northern part of the state, where the wind sweeps 
over the growing grain in spring and early summer every day, 
relieving the soil from excessive moisture, which may then 
prevail, feeding the wheat in its passage, and stimulating the 
growth of the stalk and ear by the constant waving motion, 
which makes it so beautiful. And hence, exactly the same 
black, limy prairie soil, to be found in spots, and even in 
whole neighborhoods, (growing less as you go east,) in Wash- 
ington, Grimes, Walker, Polk and Tyler counties, and where 
there is more timber, and a lower and more level surface, will 
not produce the same quantity of grain, perhaps on an average, 
by one-half. And, hence, the stagnation in the atmosphere, 



92 WEALTH— SOURCES OF. 

Atmosphere. 

by one-half. And, hence, the stagnation in the atmosphere, 
produced by a dense forest immediately north of a field, in- 
jures corn as much or more than the shade on the east or west 
side of it. And, hence, the great advantage that our farmers 
are well known to derive by planting their crops with good 
distance in the rows, by which the air has a free circulation 
between them. For this reason the rows should be planted 
wide as nearly in the direction of our spring and summer 
winds, (north and south,) as convenient. For a fuller appre- 
ciation of this benefit it may be added, that the rapidity in 
the circulation of atmosphere presses much more of it into 
the soil than if it were stagnant or sluggish, and by that 
means a more constant and abundant material is added to the 
soil, for the promotion of the necessary chemical action within 
it. This benefit, thus derived, may be redoubled, as experi- 
ence verifies, by very deep plowing in the preparation of land 
for a crop, so as to permit the atmosphere the more deeply to 
penetrate the soil. It is important to be understood, that 
during most of the year the atmosphere flows over the sur- 
face of the earth from south to north ; not only to render 
available some of the benefits heretofore indicated, but also 
to avoid some of the disadvantages that may result from it. 
It is for that reason, that in selecting a location for a residence 
the north or north-cast side of a river or creek bottom, or of 
a marsh of any sort, should be avoided ; and preference should 
be given to the south side of a farm, rather than to the north 
side. Very high points of land have not proved to be very 
healthful, especially those that overlook large bottoms. Resi- 
dences upon deep, sandy soils, as are often found in sand- 
flats, and in the pine woods, are generally not so healthful as 
those situated upon hard soil, or upon gravelly land. Resi- 
dences should be generally constructed, in this state, so as to 
procure good ventilation from the south winds of summer, 
and to guard against the cold north winds of winter. A house, 
for a residence, should be placed on blocks or pillars not less 
than three feet high, so as to give a free circulation of the air 
under it. Houses placed near the ground almost invariably 
generate sickness, very often such as typhoid fever, especially 
where there is a damp surface. 



WEALTH— SOURCES OF. 93 

Cane and Reeds — Grasses. 

Cane and Reeds. 

Forty years ago the river, creek, and even branch bottoms, 
in southern and eastern Texas, were overgrown with cane- 
brakes, or reed-brakes, the latter often covering the adjoining 
slopes of the ridges. They constituted largely, in the first set- 
tlement of those portions, the food for herds of horses and 
cattle during the winter and early spring. The stock has 
gradually destroyed them, except in those portions of the 
country where there have been but few settlers. A somewhat 
singular incident connected with their decline was, that when 
they bore seed they died, and often their places were occu- 
pied afterwards by a growth of bushes. Occasionally tracts 
of them have been fenced, so as to keep stock out during the 
growing season, by which they have been preserved as fine 
winter pastures. Stock are, however, liable to be sometimes 
killed by using it when ^rozen. Much of the reed-brakes 
might yet be preserved in many places by fencing. Cane 
might have been profitably exported upon our rivers of south- 
eastern Texas, had enterprise been directed to it sufficiently, 
and even yet it could there be done to good profit by those 
who have no regular employment, if they should be willing 
to camp in the river bottoms in winter for that purpose 

Grasses. 

We have a great variety of native grasses, some of which 
are very valuable from their durability, and nutritive qualities. 
In all the timbered portions of the country grass somewhat 
similar to the prairie grass of the present day originally grew, 
except where the cane and reeds grew. The turf being broken 
by the tramping of the stock, its place is extensively occu- 
pied by thickets of under-brush, particularly adjacent to the 
farms. Still in most neighborhoods there is vacant territory 
sufficient for tolerably good summer range. For about twenty 
years past, the milo grass of eastern Texas has been gradu- 
ally spreading westward from the eastern border of the state. 
It is a short, running grass that forms a strong mat of roots, 
that do not die out during the winter, and has in summer and 
fall a very small, slender stem that shoots up and bears a 
three-pronged head of seed of diminutive size. Its leaf is 
short and much broader than that of the Bermuda, or running 



94 WEALTH— SOURCES OF. 

Grasses. 



musquite. By its running process it is continually renewing 
itself, when fed down during spring, summer and fall, encircles 
and kills out all the worthless weeds that previously infested 
the ground, and prevents bushes from germinating where it 
has covered the surface. It is very nutritious, and very much 
liked by stock of all kinds, as horses, cattle and hogs. It 
has one great advantage over the Bermuda grass in the fact 
that it is not difficult to destroy it, when the land is attempted 
to be put in cultivation. It now occupies all of the thrown- 
out fields of our eastern border ; and all that is necessary to 
get a good pasture of this most valuable milo grass in eastern 
Texas, is to turn out a field, or cut off the trees and bushes, 
so as to let the sunshine to the ground, to which must be 
added a little patience to see it spread. This is destined to be 
the permanent pasturage of that section, as the famous run- 
ning musquite is of the west, and like it, tramping does not 
destroy it, as it does the grasses that grow in bunch-turfs, 
and not by running. 

The musquite grass is a native of the far west, and is gradu- 
ally spreading eastwardly over the prairies, rooting out weeds 
and supplanting the coarser bunch-turf grass, that is the com- 
mon grass of the prairies, usually called, sedge grass, 
though it is very different from the sedge grass of the old 
worn out fields of other states. The musquite is a running 
grass, very much like the Bermuda in its appearance, and is 
extremely nutritious. This musquite grass is more perma- 
nently valuable to western Texas than all the cultivated crops 
that can ever grow upon the high-lands. It, without any 
labor bestowed upon it, feeds hundreds of thousands of cattle 
and horses, and fattens them for market in winter, as well as 
in summer. In the winter it is hay, cured and saved from a 
loss of its nutritious qualities by the dry fall season, and the 
general dryness of the climate and soil of that section. The 
rank gamma grass of the river bottoms, and other grasses 
common to be met with, are believed to be temporary, and 
unimportant, as, like the cane and reeds, they are giving 
way to the settlements. 

There is a remarkable grass that has, within a few years 
past, made its appearance in the corn-fields, after the corn is 



WEALTH— SOURCES OF. 95 

Grasses. 

laid by, in the river bottom lands of the Colorado River near 
Austin. It grows up like millet, bears a large seed, and, when 
mowed, makes a fine hay of which stock, both cattle and 
horses, are very fond. It is sometimes called goose grass, 
from its supposed importation by wild geese, but it really has 
no name established generally, and from its advent here it 
should appropriately be called the Texas Colorado grass. It 
is probable it can be raised on the bottom lands of other 
rivers, and of creeks, and be made extremely useful, as it is 
said to be no impediment to the crop while growing and be- 
ing cultivated ; and by cutting and piling the corn-stalks, as 
soon as the corn is gathered, a heavy crop of good hay may 
be mowed and saved for winter use. 

One of the great advantages of grass pastures consists in 
the great amount of green food and provender produced for 
stock without the labor and expense of cultivation. Another 
advantage, when it forms a dense mat of roots and blades on 
the surface, as does the milo grass of the east, and the mus- 
quite of the west, it prevents the land from deterioration by 
washing, and enriches the surface soil by there arresting the 
ascension of the mineral ingredients that are drawn up by 
heat, through the process of evaporation from the sub-soils, 
which, combining with the cast-off matter from the roots of 
the grass, that takes place in its annual renewals of its 
growth, gradually forms a rich surface soil. 

It is often remarked, that our high, rich plains of the west 
would be a magnificent countr},^, if there was only rain enough 
there to raise crops of corn and cotton with certainty. It is 
true that, in that event, it might support a denser population; 
but its real magnificence as a grand, natural grazing country 
would have departed with the permanence of good sea- 
sons, which would rot the grass in the winter, as is the case 
near our coast, and it would no longer have a good coat of 
nutritious hay, covering the surface of the earth, upon which 
stock can feed at will, as is now the case, by which fat cattle 
9.re sent to the market in the dead of winter from the plains 
and valleys three hundred miles up the Brazos and Colorado 
Rivers, while the cattle near the coast, where it is much 
warmer, are reeling with poverty, — poorly subsisting upon the 



96 WEALTH— SOURCES OF. 

Grasses — Pests. 

decayed grass, whose nutrition has been greatly impaired, and 
even almost entirely destroyed, by the exeess of moisture 
there prevailing during that season of the year. And in that 
event, also, there would not, and could not be that health- 
producing atmosphere that now makes its inhabitants so ro- 
bust a people. 

Its true magnificence consists in a rich, limy soil, not sub- 
ject to waste and impoverishment by evaporation, ( as is the 
case in all wet countries ) in a temporate climate, and in a 
pure, healthful atmosphere, and in its dryness, more than in 
any other quality. All these qualities combined invariably 
produce in a country a healthy, robust population, and are 
almost, if not quite, absolutely necessary to confer on it the 
benefit of a perpetual pasturage during all seasons of the year. 

Where grapes grow well wheat and other small grains will 
grow with proper culture. 



The High, Dry Grazing Plains and the Staked Plain. 

In former times but little was known of these high plains, 
including the Staked Plain, and the country between the Pe- 
cos and Rio Grande rivers, except what could be learned 
from persons traveling across them on the routes to and from 
California, and from persons who were engaged in expeditions 
in pursuit of Indians, or from buffalo hunters. 

Much of it has now been surveyed, and stockmen and 
others have passed over it more extensively, and experiments 
to some extent have been made in raising crops. It is now 
believed to be much better adapted to raising crops, and to 
be more seasonable, and to have much more water than was 
formerly thought. Where the grasses grow well and bear 
seeds from year to year, it may well be concluded that wheat, 
barley and other cereals can be grown by proper skill in cul- 
tivation when proper selections, adapted to the climate of the 
country, are made. One of the best evidences of the capacity 
of that whole plain-country to sustain a population, support- 
ed by the productions of the earth there, is, that it was for 
centuries past the habitation of millions of buffaloes, that sub- 
sisted upon its grasses, and got water from its pools, lakes, 
springs, and streams. 

Though the population there supported may not be so 
dense as that farther east, still those who live there will have 
peculiar advantages in a healthful climate, in the production 
of the cereals, and permanent pasturage, in manufacturing fa- 
cilities, and in mineral resources in the different parts of that 
extensive region of the state. 

97- 



CHAPTER VII. 



Cultivation of Crops. 



Modes of cultivation of crops in Texas to obtain the advantages, and to relieve 
against the disadvantages, peculiar to the Texas climates and soils. Periods 
of the growth of different crops. How the excessive wet of spring and 
dryness of summer are to be guarded against. 

The late frosts, their causes and effects, and how relieved against both in crops 
and orchard fruits. Some examples of successful farming in raising corn, 
cotton and potatoes, and the principles evolved therefrom. Adaptation of 
the different parts of the state to different crops and orchard fruits. 

Orchards, their vahie and adaptation to, and mode of planting, pruning, and cul- 
tivating with the soils best adapted to them, and how the disadvantages of 
each section are to be remedied, and advantages of our cHmate turned to 
profit Grapes, native and cultivated in different parts, adaptation to, uses of. 

Merses and cattle, modes of raising in the past and present. Arts of horsemanship 
and of throwing the rope, necessary accomplishment, how attained and per- 
formed. Mexican saddle. 

Swine. Modes of raising, past and present. ^Managed witli hog-dogs, and how. 
Dependence on the masts, and how benefits ol^tained. Improved stock. 

Sheep. Large section adapted to, — adaptation established. Profits of their best 
locality in a delightful country. 

Farming with manures, fertilizers and improved imple- 
ments, is an art in which there is much of science involved, 
and it is seldom resorted to in any country until the natural 
fertility of the virgin soil is considerably exhausted. It will 
likely, therefore, be some time before it will be a subject of 
great practical importance in Texas. Still there may be some 
cardinal principles in the cultivation of crops, and in the rear- 
ing of orchards and vineyards, as peculiarly applicable to this 
country, that it may be useful to point out. 

The first question to be asked is, what can be profitably 
grown so as to remunerate the labor employed, and the capi- 
tal expended ? This must depend upon the character or kind 
of marketable production to which each section is best 
adapted, from its soil, climate, and means of transportation. 
These things run through the mind of the farmer, usually 
without much discussion, and take a direction in the first settle- 

98 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 99 



What can be profitably grown. 



ment of a country, by the application of common sense to 
what can readily be seen, relating to the natural growth. 
Hence, it happened, that in eastern and southern Texas, the 
early settlers, as soon as their farms were opened, commenced 
to raise cotton ; and those of the extreme west devoted them- 
selves to raising stocks of cattle, sheep and horses, and of 
the north, wheat. The principal crops grown in Texas are 
wheat, corn, cotton and sweet potatoes. Sugar and sea 
Island cotton are raised to some extent on and near the coast. 
Irish potatoes, tomatoes, peas, beans, and most other vegeta- 
bles of the garden, or of the field, are grown mainly for home 
consumption. In undertaking anything, we should endeavor 
to understand the materials we have to work with, the time 
and circumstances under which it must be done, and the ob- 
jects to be attained. 

It should therefore be borne in mind, in the investigation of 
the adaptability of crops to any particular section of Texas, 
that cotton is here a plant grown in the spring, summer, and 
fall ; so are sweet potatoes ; that corn is a spring and early 
summer plant, and wheat is a fall, winter and spring plant, 
reaching but slightly in its growth into the summer. Irish 
potatoes and most of the garden vegetables mature in the 
spring and early summer. Turnips are fall plants, as well as 
some other vegetables. It should be recollected, also, that in 
most of the farming portions of the state the winter, after the 
first of January, and the spring are usually very wet, the rain 
being rather in excess for farmmg well; that the summer and 
fall are generally dry, there not being enough rain then to 
sustain the prospect of the spring growth, by which the far- 
mer very often suffers himself to be disappointed in his san- 
guine expectations. It is a universal rule, of both animal 
and vegetable productions, that the greatest maturity is at- 
tained by their growing during the whole of their season of 
growth, regularly and continuously, without either being 
stopped or retarded, or pushed forward too hastily at any 
period during that time. One of the most striking illustra- 
tions of these principles is to be found in the growth and ma- 
turity of the cotton plant in the south, during the full period 
of six months. And the reason why this great plain of the 



loo CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Relief from excessive moisture of Spring and dryness of Summer 



Gulf slope is one of the best, if not the very best, cotton re- 
gion of the world, is, that it is here usually practicable to con- 
tinue its growth during that whole period without material 
injury from great excess or deficiency of heat, or from great 
excess or deficiency of moisture. 

With these things plainly in v^iew the problem to be solved 
is, how shall the cultivation of our ordinary crops be managed 
so as to be, as far as possible, relieved against tiie excessive 
moisture of spring and the dryness of summer, in the respec- 
tive crops, that are planted each in reference to its season of 
growth. It must be understood that plants receive that part 
of their nourishment that comes from the soil, through the 
very small roots or rootlets that distribute themselves out in 
different directions from the main or principal roots ; that their 
nourishment is prepared for reception by these rootlets by 
the chemical process which is carried on in the ground by the 
combination of the different materials in the earth ; that this 
chemical process acts in its most beneficial manner, in a mel- 
low, moist soil, and is stopped entirely, or greatly retarded, 
equally by an excess or by a deficiency of moisture, and also 
equally by an excess or deficiency of heat. Now one of the 
means (and a very efticieat one) of preventing this cessation, 
or injurious retardation of the necessary chemical action pro- 
duced by this excess of moisture usually in the spring, is by 
deep plowing ia the preparation of the ground for a crop. 
In Texas this rule applies to all crops. It was a practice 
in states east of this, when the rains were more regular during 
the whole cropping season of the year, to plant cotton on 
a little hard ridge, left unbroken in bedding up the land. 
That, as well as many other things practiced in cultivation 
there, is wholly inapplicable here. 

Deep plowing in the preparation of the ground for planting 
lets the rain water sink down deeply, and leaves the surface, 
where the young plant is rooted, much dryer than shallow 
plowing. The ground in the spring is generally colder than 
the atmosphere, and the warm rains of spring sink through 
the deeply-plowed ground and increase its general tempera- 
ture in warmth, which is then so necessary to the growth of 
the plant. And if the ground is very level, or its soil of a na- 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. loi 



Relief from excessive moisture of Spring and dryness of Summer. 

ture to retain the moisture at the surface, it should not onl}- 
be plowed deeply, but it should be thrown up into high, broad 
ridges, with deep water furrows, so as to keep the roots of 
the plant out of the water, or, what is in effect the same thing, 
out of the wet, soggy earth, which increases the cold in the 
spring of the year, and prevents chemical action. The advan- 
tages of this, as a means of increasing the warmth of the 
earth, may be appreciated by considering the difficulty of 
warming any body by the action of heat downwards. We 
do not put fire on the top of a vessel to heat the water in it, 
but rather put it under the vessel Again, afield often acres 
plowed nine inches deep is equal to a field of thirty acres, 
which is plowed only three inches deep, in the amount of 
material that is put to work to make a crop. Another advan- 
tage in deep plowing, so important to this country, is, that 
the water of the rains of the spring having thereby sunk 
deeply in the earth, instead of having run off and washed off 
a part of the soil with it, is stored away to be drawn back to 
the surface by the heat of the summer, when it is usually so 
much needed to sustain the growth of the crop. 

Another means of drying the land in the spring, near the 
roots of the plant, is, by barring off the dirt from the planted 
rows with a plow, so as to let the warmth of the sun approach 
nearer the roots of the plants. This being, however, after 
the crop has been planted, and has come up, care must be 
taken in doing it in early spring, not to stir the soil about the 
roots of the plants any more than can be helped ; for the 
reason, that stirring the land in early spring, near the young 
plants, increases the coldness of the soil in which they stand, 
by drawing the moisture and increasing the evaporation. 
This is often witnessed in the northern half of Texas, where, 
through the influence of the late northers, there is usually a 
frost early in April, (from the 5th to the 15th) which, if the 
corn land has been just plowed thoroughly, will injure and 
sometimes kill the young corn ; whereas, that which has not 
been plowed, or which has only been barred off, so as not to 
stir the ground near the roots, has not been injured at all by 
the frost. And one reason why this late frost does not do 
more injury to young crops, and to small grain, than it really 



102 CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Relief from excessive moisture of Spring and dryness of Summer. 



does, is, that it is a surface cold, or, in other words, that it is 
produced by a coldness in the atmosphere, of so transient a 
character, that the general temperature of the earth is but 
slightly changed by it, and that only temporarily at the sur- 
face, being produced by a slight norther. If the ground has 
not been recently stirred near the roots of the plants, this sur- 
face cold will generally not reach low enough to change ma- 
terially the temperature of the earth in their locality, and, 
therefore, though the top of the corn may be nipped by the 
frost, its roots being uninjured, it grows on nearly as if there 
had been no frost. Cotton at that season is more tender than 
corn, and, if up when the late frost comes, would be more 
seriously injured, if not killed, by it; and, therefore, in all 
the portions of Texas usually liable to late frost, the time of 
its planting should have reference to that anticipated frost in 
April, so as to escape its evil effects, or the danger of it. 

Crops on high, rolling lands are seldom injured by the 
short cold spells of early spring, while those on bottoms, low, 
level lands, or stiff lands that incline to hold the moisture at 
the surface, are often injured by them, if not killed; unless 
by deep plowing or by high bedding before planting, or by 
barring off promptly and properly after planting, their ill 
effects are avoided. 

After this cold spell of April is safely passed the plow can- 
not well be run too fast, or too often, in order to enable the 
soil and the atmosphere to press the crop forward, so as to 
be in good condition to meet and overcome the dry spell, or 
drouth, that may be anticipated in the last of spring or the 
first of summer, and sometimes in mid-summer. If the crop 
has thus been well put in and started off, care should be taken 
afterwards to use a sweep or harrow so as to break the roots 
of the crop as little as possible, consistently with it being kept 
clear of grass and weeds, which should never be suffered to 
grow in a crop during the period of its maturing. 

If due preparation has not been made to meet that season 
of dryness and heat, a failure of the previously glowing pros- 
pects of a crop must necessarily ensue. And this leads us 
to consider another means of securing a good crop, besides 
deep plowing before planting, which is, that of giving the 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 103 

Necessity of long distances between rows. 

crop a long distance between rows, and of thinning it out to a 
stand that the soil is capable of sustaining properly, during' 
the dry season of summer. This is perhaps the most dif- 
ficult task that the farmer has to perform, and has heretofore 
been as much, and perhaps more, neglected, or disregarded, 
in this country, as has the deep plowing before planting. For 
though it is often said, "that a crop must be cultivated before 
it is planted," it is seldom said or acted upon, "that only so 
much crop should be allowed to stand on the ground, as it is 
able to sustain in the dry season of summer." The difficul- 
ties in this are, first, those who have learned, or imitate, the 
cultivation of other states east of us, are apt to regard it as a 
mere waste of land to give sufficient distance between the 
rows in laying them off; and secondly, at the usual time of 
thinning the crop the plants are growing so thriftily, and look 
so flourishing and green, that it is hard to believe that they 
will not continue to do so ; and, amidst their profusion of life 
and vigor, it actually requires a sort of stubborn hardihood, 
upon cold calculation and conviction of necessity, then not 
easily reached, to pull or cut up one-half as many of the 
stalks of corn or cotton as ought to be taken up to thin it 
enough. The consequence is, that as many stalks are left on 
the ground, as the land would be able to make bear ears, or 
bolls, if the moisture of spring continued during the summer, 
and the land retained the fertility with which it set out in 
the spring. It would be purely accidental in this country if 
either or both of these things should happen in any year; 
which long experience has demonstrated to an absolute cer- 
tainty. Why, then, leave any more crop on the ground than 
that which can reasonably be expected to grow and mature, 
during an ordinarily dry season ? A farmer, who had food 
for three horses only, would be considered unwise to feed it 
to nine, or even to six, under the expectation of keeping them 
in good condition. Our spring season gives promise, invari- 
ably almost, of twice the crop of corn and cotton that the 
summer can possibly yield, unless it should happen to be a 
rare exception to the general rule in the amount of rain-faH. 
By way of elucidating this much neglected subject, it may be 
asked, what is the end to be attained in planting corn and cot- 



I04 CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Necessity of long distances between rows. 

ton ? To which, it may be answered, that it is to make good 
ears of corn, and good bolls of cotton, rather than large stalks 
without the good ears and bolls. Now if the fertility of the 
soil be exhausted in producing a super-abundance of stalks, 
it cannot produce good ears and bolls. But more than that, 
the earth will be true to itself, in its own laws of action, and 
if there is imposed on it the burden of producing a super- 
abundance of stalks consisting of mainstems, branches and 
leaves, it will, when the dry season overtakes it, struggle on 
with its load, and do its best to keep filled with vitality every 
leaf and branch with which the moisture of spring has crowd- 
ed the stems, and will not leave that off to make ears, in the 
case of corn, and bolls, in the case of cotton ; but will only 
make such an amount of ears and bolls as may be within its 
power, after sustaining, as best it may, that which had been 
previously produced in the shape of stems, branches and 
leaves. Therefore it is, that we sometimes see a fine field of 
well grown stalks of corn, whose shoots have good shucks 
with but little grain ; and of well grown stalks of cotton with 
but few bolls, and they not well developed. This is rarely, if 
ever, seen where it is complained that there is only half a 
stand, which indeed, though said to be only half a stand, is 
often stand enough to produce well. One reason of the 
necessity of good distance in the plants of crops, both be- 
tween and in the rows, is, that, by that means there not 
only will be a sufficient moisture and fertility in the soil to sus- 
tain them in dry weather, but, also, the air and the light can 
properly perform their offices in vegetable production ; which 
they cannot do in crowded crops. This may be readily seen 
in cotton, which grows with a tap-root and branches like a 
tree. And the principle sought to be enforced here is veri- 
fied in every orchard, and in the native forests, where it may 
be seen that the trees that grow in thick clusters, so as to 
prevent the free circulation of the air and the admission of 
the light to all parts of them, will bear little or no fruit ; and 
that which is found in the densely-shaded parts of the trees 
will be deficient in full development. This is very conspicu- 
ous in the trees on the edges of the prairies in the numerous 
acorns they bear, compared with trees off in the adjoining 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 105 

Necessity of long distances between rows. 

thick forests ; and also where a hickory-nut or walnut tree is 
left in an open place about a farm. 

Another means of preventing the ill effects of the dry sea- 
son of our summers upon crops, is, by preventing the growth 
of young grass and weeds amongst it, until the crop is fully 
matured. The crop, especially of corn, is usually laid by, and 
let grow up in grass and weeds, more or less, that often at- 
tain considerable growth during the time the crop is struggling 
to reach its maturity in the midst of the dry season. The 
moisture and fertility of the soil, that are required to produce 
the growth of grass and weeds, is exactly that which has been 
lost to the crop during the earing time in corn, and the boiling 
time in cotton, Avhich is the time, above all others, that the 
natural resources of the earth should be husbanded for the 
use of the crop. To appreciate the full force of this, it must 
be understood that the vigorous young grass and weeds, 
springing up in the previously well-tilled ground, are more 
active in searching for and appropriating the remaining mois- 
ture and fertility of the soil, than the older plants, constituting 
the crop ; just as may be seen in our forests, where the young 
trees are growing thickly amidst the old trees, stopping the 
growth of the older ones, causing them gradually to die off 
and decay, by absorbing from the earth and air the suste- 
nance by which they formerly flourished in vigor. Again, 
we find an advantage in wide rows in planting, by its taking 
less plowing in the spring to keep the ground clear of grass 
and weeds, and by means of sweeps or harrows, keeping them 
down in the summer, without injuring the plants. And if the 
good season should continue during the summer, by a rare 
accident, the space will be needed for the unusually large 
growth of the plant. Some of the very best crops of corn 
and cotton have been made on ordinary up-lands in Texas, 
when the rows w^ere planted five, and even six and seven feet 
apart. To get the full benefit of wide rows, as has been re- 
marked in another place for the reason there assigned, they 
should be laid off as nearly as practicable, in the direction of 
north and south, which is the direction of our prevalent winds 
in the spring and summer seasons of the year. 

Crops planted in rows north and south, not only denve 



io6 CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Advantages of rows running north and south. 

greater benefit from the increased circulation of the air, but 
the plants shade the ground at their roots at the hottest time 
of the day, which is no little advantage during a dry, hot 
summer. It may not be improper, also, to state the fact, that 
a person is less exhausted by the heat in plowing north and 
south, than east and west ; as in the latter case the sun is 
pouring its heat upon his back on every round during most of 
the day. 

It is not designed to do more here, than to point out some 
of the means to be used in the cultivation of crops by which 
the advantages may be realized, and the disadvantages obvi- 
ated, which are dependent to a great extent, upon the pecu- 
liarities of our climate, and which it is believed will consist, 
in the main, in deep plowing or sub-soiling in the preparation 
for a crop, and such other means as will promote dryness and 
warmth in the spring, in wide rows, thinned out to such a 
stand, as the usually dry season in the summer will mature 
well ; and in shallow plowing or harrowing of the ground, 
after the early spring has passed, so as to keep down the grass 
and weeds, without breaking the roots of the growing crop 
until the crop shall have been properly matured. The same 
facts and principles may be applied to the cultivation of other 
crops, besides corn and cotton, if the time of the year adapt- 
ed to their respective growth and maturity be taken into con- 
sideration. 

It may be of practical advantage to give some examples of 
the modes that have been successfully adopted in raising the 
ordinary crops. General Pitts, who lived many years on the 
San Marcos in western Texas, was heard to say that he never 
failed to make corn there, even in the dryest seasons, and 
when asked how he made it, his terse reply was, "by deep 
plowing." 

The Fullerlove mode of making corn with seven furrows 
after planting, is as follows, to wit : Early in the spring, just 
before the time for planting, a piece of land is selected which 
has been well cultivated in cotton the preceding year; three 
furrows are run deeply in the middle of the rows with a 
scooter plow, upon which a bed is thrown with a turning 
plow, just as land is prepared for planting cotton. A straight 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 107 

Examples of successful farming. 

row is run in the middle of the bed with a very small plow, 
into which the corn is dropped, and covered by running one 
or two furrows. The more exactly straight the corn can be 
put in the drill, the easier it will be cultivated. When the 
corn has sprouted and is ready to come up, the top of the 
ridge is knocked off with a board so as to allow the corn to 
come up in a smooth, clean surface. Now the seven furrows 
are commenced to be made by barring off each side of the 
corn with a turning plow, shortly after it comes up. The ef- 
fect of this is to keep the little ridge upon which the corn is 
standing, warm and dry, should there be an excess of rain, 
which is usually the case at that season. Before the roots 
of the corn shall protrude from the little ridge, the dirt is 
thrown back to the corn with a turning plow, so as to cover 
up any grass or weeds that may have come up in the drill. 
By this means the corn is still kept on a ridge, with furrows 
each side of it, sufficiently near and deep to draw off from it the 
excess of water that may have fallen. The next plowing is 
with a sweep, (after sowing peas,) three furrows of which will 
plow out the middle of the row, and throw more dirt to the 
corn. By this mode the roots of the corn are not broken at 
all, the corn is laid by very early, and the peas will be sown 
in time to get a good start before they are too much shaded 
by the corn. This admirable mode of raising corn is practi- 
cable only when the land has been previously well cultivated 
in cotton, or in something that required it to be kept clear of 
grass and weeds during the previous year. Mr. Fullerlove 
was a good farmer, and a respectable gentleman, who lived in 
De Soto Parish, in Louisiana, and cultivated black-jack and 
hickory ridge lands, very similar to the lands in eastern Texas, 
where his mode was extensively adopted with profit. 

A successful farmer in Rusk county, (Mr. Baily) followed 
the plan of farming as follows : He cleared a farm of about 
two hundred and fifty acres, placed his gin house in the middle 
of it, around which he planted about one acre in corn, and all 
of the balance in cotton, except that he crossed his cotton 
rows in planting, with corn rows, twenty or thirty feet apart, 
and cultivated the corn with his cotton. He cultivated his 
cotton late, so as to prevent any grass or weeds from growing 



io8 CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Examples of successful farming. 

in any part of the farm, during any year, and thereby it was 
easily kept clean every year. He had no cross fences to keep 
up. He gathered his corn after he gathered his cotton, except 
what he could gather near the turn-rows, along which his 
wagon would pass. He made plenty of corn for bread, and for 
his mules and hogs, and kept on hand no more live-stock of 
any kind, than what he could make useful to him in this mode 
of farming. He was emphatically a cotton farmer, and a 
successful one. 

Another successful farmer was Dr. W. P. Wright, who 
combined science with experiment in farming, both in western 
and in eastern Texas. His plan deserves to be noticed. His 
mode of farming was dependent upon having plenty of cleared 
land, and cultivating his crops of corn and cotton almost en- 
tirely with the plow, as must be the case to a great degree in 
all successful farming in this country. He planted his corn 
or cotton, especially the latter, invdrilled rows, six, seven, eight, 
and even ten feet apart ; — leaving the cotton thick or thin in 
the drill, according to the strength of the land. During all 
the early part of the season he cultivated the crop in the 
drills, by plowing and chopping through them, and thinning 
out to a proper stand. When the middle of the row became 
foul with grass or weeds, he lapped it into two or three ridges 
with a turning plow, which required only half the time re- 
quired for plowing out the middle, which is done later in the 
season, when the press of work is over ; after which the crop 
of cotton may be kept clean with scrapes or harrows until 
frost in the fall. The principle of his theory is, that by the 
great width of the rows, one hand can cultivate double the 
usual quantity of land, and can keep it clean by horse-power 
until frost ; and that at the same time the cotton will have 
plenty of room to spread, if there is plenty of rain during the 
season ; and if there is not, the space will be needed to fur- 
nish moisture to the plants in the drill. The size of the 
stalks, the number and the weight of the bolls of cotton, and 
. the amount of corn produced by this mode of planting in 
wide rows, will astonish any one, who has never witnessed the 
experiment. 

A very great object with farmers, is, and should be, to dis- 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 109 

Examples of successful farming. 

pense with the vast amount of scraping or hoeing, formerly 
so much in use in making cotton. This can only be done by 
a most careful preparation in planting, and by a skillful selec- 
tion, and use of plows. A practical instance of this may be 
related, where an intelligent mechanic, upon turning farmer, 
devised the means of cultivating sixty acres of nice ridge land 
in corn and cotton, by the help of his son, a boy, two 
mules, and by the use of plows and harrows almost entirely. 
It was done in the following manner: 

He plowed his land thoroughly into ridges, and ran a har- 
row upon the ridges, until they were fully smooth. He then 
opened the ridges with a small plow, having affixed a piece 
of round wood to the back of the plow in such a way as to 
make a smooth surface in the plowed furrow, into which his 
well rolled seed fell when sown ; and thereby the cotton and 
corn came up regularly in a perfectly straight row. It was 
then cultivated entirely with harrows, after the first plowing 
around the cotton and corn, with the exception of thinning 
out, which was done in a few days, by his two little girls. 
His crop, when gathered, was more valuable than that of a 
neighbor who employed four negro men, and with them cul- 
tivated better land in the usual mode with hoes and plows. 
This information was derived from the neighbor who was thus 
surpassed in farming by the ingenious mechanic. 

These examples exhibit the advantages of keeping the 
ground clear of grass and weeds, from year to year, so as to 
prevent their seeds from maturing ; of width in the rows, so 
as to prevent more crop from growing than can be sustained, 
during the whole season of its growth ; of cultivating the crop 
almost entirely with plows, sweeps and harrows, and dispens- 
ing greatly with the use of the hoe, so much formerly, and 
now too much in use, and made necessary by the usual mode 
of farming ; of deep plowing in preparing the land for plant- 
ing, and in the early part of the season, and shallow plowing 
afterwards, continued late in the season. The effort of the 
intelligent farmer should be to combine all of these advan- 
tages, as far as possible, in the same crop. 

An example of good wheat crops may be found upon the 
farms, situated upon the high, black, limy ridges in the prairies 



no CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Modes of raising potatoes. 

of northern Texas where the exact condition of things is 
found that is most favorable to a crop of small grain ; to wit : 
A limy soil, high and undulating ridges so as to obviate the 
usual excess of moisture in the spring of the year, and so as 
to be easily accessible to the winds that sweep over the grow- 
ing grain, and prevent the stagnation of atmosphere in the 
field. 

In raising sweet potatoes, which grow during spring, sum^ 
mer and fall, the land should be deeply broken up one way, 
and bedded up the other into high, broad ridges, upon which 
the slips should be planted, (without the ridge being drawn 
up to a point on top), so as to shed the falling water in the 
spring. Thus the plant gets the warmth from the falling rain 
water, and is still high enough above the level of the earth to 
be kept out of the soggy ground, produced by the super- 
abundant rain of the spring. As summer approaches, and the 
vines begin to spread, they should be turned from side to side, 
and the ridges plowed into deeply, and thrown towards the 
plant, without covering up the vines, which should never be 
done. After this is done, but little culture is needed, except, 
that when the vines have covered the ground, a stick like a 
hoe handle should be run under the vines along the middle of 
the rows, so as to lift them up, and detach from the ground 
the little roots, that have shot down into the earth from the 
vines, out in the middle of the row, and on the side of the 
ridge, thereby giving the root in the ridge all of the susten- 
ance derivable from the whole vine. They should not be dug 
until after or just before the first light frost in the fall. This 
mode is not only conformable to the true principles of culti- 
vation, but it is that which is adopted by Mr. White, an ex- 
perienced farmer in Texas, who has potatoes to sell every 
year and does not attribute it to " luck " 

Irish potatoes, being usually in this climate a spring and 
early summer crop, should be planted upon high beds of rich, 
well pulverized soil. When they are planted deeply in the 
ridge, as is sometimes done, it renders the crop uncertain as 
to quantity, and makes them late in maturing. The earth 
should not be drawn up much on the stalks or vines, as that 
tends to produce the same result as deep planting. A sec- 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. iii 

Adaptation of soils to crops — orchard fruits, 

ond crop may often be made by planting in August, or earlier 
in the summer if the season is favorable. By this late plant- 
ing, seed for the next year may be made. When more is 
made in the early planting than can be used, one of the 
best modes of keeping them during the summer and fall, is 
to let them remain in the ridges where they have grown ; and, 
in case of a long drouth, they may be better preserved by 
drawing up the earth on the ridges. This will often keep 
them sound even during the winter, far better than digging 
and housing them. 

In seeking the best mode of cultivation, with reference to 
any crop that can be cultivated here, the time of the year with- 
in which it can best be grown, so as to arrive at full maturity, 
must be considered in connection with the probable charac- 
ter of the seasons, in reference to moisture and dryness, heat 
and cold, that may reasonably be anticipated during every 
part of the full period of its growth and maturity, so as to 
provide for helping Nature to do its work in production, on 
principles deduced from the works of Nature. 

With the same object, as above indicated, some views will 
be presented on the subject of orchards in Texas. 

There is a considerable difference in the adaptability of 
the different parts of Texas to the different sorts of orchard 
fruits, though fruits of some kinds grow well in each section. 
Oranges, with some protection, grow on the coast. Figs and 
pears grow well in southern Texas, and figs might be grown 
even in northern Texes, if properly protected from the spells 
of severe cold. In nearly all of the settled portions of Texas, 
pears, peaches, apples, and plums can be grown. Apples 
do well in the northern and north-eastern part of the state, 
as well as peaches, pears and plums, and are already being 
raised for market. Our ripe apples can be sent to St. Louis, 
and Chicago in the latter part of May or first of June, when 
their apple trees are scarcely out of bloom. This is the great 
advantage that we have in Texas in fruit-growing, as well as 
in raising wheat, and the orchardist as well as the wheat- 
raiser should improve this advantage by raising fruit and 
grain mostly for the earliest market season. It is hardly to be 
expected that we can ever compete with states further north 



112 CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Orchards, their vahie, &c. 

in the late fruits, either in quaHty or quantity, on account of 
our usually long, dry summers, that tend to produce a tough- 
ness in fruit, and often to diminish its full growth. 

There is a very fine apple, called the bunch or orange ap- 
ple, introduced and cultivated by Mr. Perdue of Smith county, 
which has to some extent been propagated in this state. It 
is here noticed on account of its peculiarities in growth and 
bearing. The tree grows in bunch shape, like the black-jack 
tree of the forest, with a very dark green foliage which so 
continues late in the season, after that of most other apple 
trees has faded. Its fruit is of good size, somewhat bell- 
shaped and reddish in color, and ripens during two months of 
summer, while there is still small, green, unripe fruit growing 
on the tree, presenting in that respect, as well as in its green 
foliage, the appearance of the orange tree. The fruit mel- 
lows on the tree and is very palatable, as well as beautiful. 
A remarkably large pear is being now propagated to some 
extent, (limited as yet) that has been introduced and cultivat- 
ed by Mr. Zimri Tate of the same county. One produced by 
him and sent to the St. Louis fair in 1874, weighed over two 
pounds. 

We have a number of orchard nurseries in different parts of 
the state, and much attention is being given to fruit-growing. 
The indications now are, that figs, pears and muscadines 
(scuppernong grapes) will succeed in the south and south- 
east; and that peaches, apples and grapes (as the Warren, 
Catawba, Clinton, &c.,) will succeed best in the middle, north 
and north-west parts of the state. Indeed, fruit, introduced 
here from other states, seems rather to improve in size and 
quality, when planted and cultivated in the section adapted to 
it, and, hence, we may in time have nurseries of fruit to sup- 
ply ourselves, and even to sell trees and vines to other states. 

One thing will always recommend our fruits, grapes, vege- 
tables and grains of all kinds, which is their sweetness, or the 
large amount of sacharine matter which they contain, on ac- 
count of our usually dry, sunny climate, during the season of 
their growth and maturity. Flour from our wheat wil/ on 
that account be greatly preferred, as less liable to damage, by 
being exported across the water to foreign countries, when 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 113 

Mode of planting, pruning, &c 

our commerce shall have taken that direction. This quality 
in our fruits and vegetables should attract attention towards 
the kinds to be grown, and the improvement of them in such 
a manner as will commend them in market, on account of that 
peculiarity, and in addition to the early period of the year in 
which they can be brought to full maturity for market. And 
it may well be remarked here, that as soon as our railroads 
reach, and penetrate Mexico, a vast market will be open 
to our early fruits, vegetables and grain; and preparations 
may well now be made, by planting orchards and vineyards 
in Texas to meet that demand. 

As my previous remarks, upon the cultivation of crops,, 
were directed principally to corn and cotton, as the standing- 
crops of the country, so now, it will be principally directed 
to the growth of peach, pear, fig and apple trees. 

If any one will look at the growth of the forest trees in any 
particular locality in any part of this country, he will thereby 
perceive the standard and character of the growth of the 
fruit trees, grown in that locality. And in the same way, he 
may determine the fruit-bearing tendency of them. On our 
eastern border, and in south-eastern Texas, there is a tendency 
in fruit trees to grow too rapidly and thriftily in the produc- 
tion of wood, and consequently with a diminished tendency 
to fruit-bearing. Towards the west and north-west from that 
region, (as the moisture of the climate diminishes) there is a 
gradual tendency to diminish in wood growth, and to increase 
in fruit-bearing, until a line is reached where the dryness and 
heat of the climate operates to the prejudice of both wood 
growth and fruit-bearing. In all those sections, where dry- 
ness is the impediment to fruit-growing, irrigation must be 
resorted to, as it has been done with the most signal success 
at El Paso on the Rio Grande. Where irrigation was not ab- 
solutely necessary, other means might be resorted to, such as 
frequent deep plowing, and grafting upon roots of a larger 
and more thrifty growth. For instance, if a pear tree is found 
to grow there more thriftily and larger than the apple tree, 
then graft the apple tree upon the pear tree root. 

The very reverse of this should be done in the extreme 
eastern and south-eastern moist portions of the state, where 



114 CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Peculiarities of our climate turned to profit. 

all fruit trees, if practicable, should be dwarfed by being 
grafted upon a less and a slower growth ; so as to increase the 
fruit-bearing, and diminish the wood growth. These two ex- 
tremes being considered, will serve as a direction for selecting 
the location of an orchard, in the intermediate localities, by 
avoiding the seepy ground at the foot of a ridge, and the dry 
or gravelly knobs on the top of the ridge. 

Our late frosts sometimes produce a failure in the crop of 
peaches, by catching the trees in full bloom. One means of 
preventing this misfortune, is, by plowing the orchard deeply 
once or twice before, and just at, blooming time ; by which 
the ground is kept cold, and the blooming of the trees is de- 
layed so as to miss the frost. Another, is to plant the or- 
chard on the north side of a ridge, or on the top of a high 
hill, (the higher the better for that) by which the blooming 
time will be deferred. This damage to the fruit may be 
averted, or much lessened, by preparing, in advance, the means 
of keeping up slow, smouldering fires, well distributed in the 
orchard (during the nights that the frosts may be anticipa- 
ted), by the smoke of which the atmosphere maybe warmed. 
There is a good peach now being grown in the nursery of 
Dr. Yokum of Larissa, in Cherokee county, Texas, that 
blooms too late for the fruit to be killed by the frost of spring, 
that should demand particular attention by orchardists in 
Texas. 

Provision should also be made for relief against the injury 
consequent upon our long, dry summers. To meet this ne- 
cessity the rows should be laid off wide enough, north and 
south, to permit a free circulation of air, when the trees shall 
be grown. They should be at least twenty-five or thirty feet 
wide. 

In addition to that, the tree should be made to grow with 
stalk or stem about three feet high, with branches in every 
direction, so as to keep the bunchy top well balanced, on and 
over the stem. This will prevent the sun from injuring the 
bark of the tree on the south side of it, will prevent it from 
being bent or blown down by storms, and will also cause the 
branches to grow upwards, instead of horizontally, and facili- 
tate the plowing near the trees. This shape of a tree may 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 115 

Grapes — cultivation of in different parts. 

be produced by three prunings ; the first, when the young 
tree is planted out, by cutting it off, leaving it three feet high 
only; the second, by cutting off the four or five branches that 
have been allowed to grow, leaving them about six inches 
long ; and the third, by cutting the branches that come on the 
first branches, so as to leave them about six inches long, 
which will be just at the end of two years from the time of 
setting out the young tree. After that, the trimming, if any, 
should be mainly for the purpose of keeping the tree well 
balanced, or to get rid of any limbs that happen to incline 
downwards. The orchard should by all means be cultivated 
so as to keep out of it the weeds and grass that will ab- 
sorb the moisture of the ground in summer, and will propor- 
tionately rob the trees of it. 

The rearing of vineyards, and wine making, partake too 
much of the nature of scientific arts to justify any extended 
notice of the subjects as applicable to Texas at present. 
Wine has not been sufficiently adopted as a beverage in the 
United States as yet, to make its manufacture profitable here, 
in comparison with other productions that require less time 
and skill. Still, for table use and home consumption, even in 
making wine, the cultivation of the grape deserves attention. 
Most of the settled portions of Texas produce some kinds of 
grapes well. In the south and east the scuppernong grape, 
which is a species of muscadine, grows and bears well where 
other kinds would fail from too much moisture, in the time of 
maturing the fruit. It is a native of the low country of North 
Carolina, on or near the Atlantic Coast. (One vine covering 
ninety feet square, upon the premises of Mr. J. G. Woldret, 
in the city of Tyler, produced in one year (1873) twenty-eight 
gallons of good wine). The Warren grape, a native of 
Georgia, is a very small, thin-skinned, sweet grape which 
grows well, and is fine for table use, and also makes good 
wine. Both of these are good runners, and do not require 
pruning. The Catawba grape is said to be a native of Bun- 
combe county in the mountains of North Carolina, and is 
one of our finest American grapes, both for eating and for 
making wine. It requires cultivation and much pruning. It 
grows and bears well in most parts of Texas, but is more sub- 



ii6 CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Grapes — cultivation of in different parts. 

ject to injury from excessive moisture in the maturing season, 
than the scuppernong. The Isabella is very much like the 
Catawba, in everything except the color, being dark brown, 
whereas the Catawba is a clear, greenish yellow color, when 
ripe. The Clinton and the Delaware are also good grapes, 
that can be grown here. The kinds of grapes that should be 
grown in each of the grand divisions of this state, are plainly 
indicated by the native grapes in each. In the line of coun- 
ties on our eastern border, and in south-eastern Texas gener- 
ally, the muscadine abounds. In all of that portion of coun- 
try north and west of the regions just referred to, embracing 
what has been designated as the black-jack belt, the large 
post-oak or sand-hill grape abounds. In the prairies of the 
west, the Mustang grape abounds. It is a large, rough 
grape, not fit to eat, from a pungent quality pertaining to the 
skin of the fruit, but it makes a wine of good body, and a very 
superior brandy as has been said. 

The post-oak grape of eastern Texas embraces many vari- 
eties, some of which are very palatable, and make an excel- 
lent wine. And if proper attention was given to the subject, 
it is believed that selections can be made from our own native 
grapes, that, if taken care of and cultivated, may be made a 
better and more durable grape for this climate, than any 
that have been brought here. 

The El Paso grape, grown on the Rio Grande, at and near 
El Paso, is said to be one of the finest grapes in the world, 
both for table use, and for making wine. It is thought to be 
a foreign grape introduced by the Spanish Priests in the 
Missions where it was cultivated and irrigated. There it has 
the advantage of ripening under a clear, sunny sky, and dry 
climate, after having been properly supplied with moisture for 
its full growth, by artificial irrigation, which fills it with a rich, 
luscious juice of a delightful, sweet flavor. It, though long 
known, and of great repute, has as yet been spread but very 
little over the country. 

The judgment of mankind, as evidenced by their practice, 
from the earliest ages, has favored the use of the grape, for 
its nutritive and stimulating qualities, as promotive of com- 
fort,_ health, and temperance. Its cheapness and abundance, 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 117 

Modes of raising horses and cattle in the past and present. 

SO as to bring it into common use, not only for its own intrin- 
sic merits, but also as a means of supplanting and excluding 
the use of harsher and stronger diet, and stimulants, should 
be sought as an object of public good. And in this again 
we see, in the fruitful capacity of this country to produce the 
grape, the bounteous provision of Nature to supply exactly 
that which is so much needed, and can be so innocently used, 
as the appropriate remedy for the enervating influence of our 
climate. 

In the first settlement of all the inhabited portions of Texas, 
horses and cattle were raised without being fed at any time of 
the year. In the timbered parts the woods were open, being 
generally free from under-brush, and produced abundant grass 
for summer; and the rivers, creeks and branch bottoms, and 
the adjoining ridges, produced cane or reeds, that supplied 
them in the winter. There are still summer ranges for stock, 
though in many parts they are scanty on account of the space 
occupied by farms, and the thick under-growth of bushes which 
generally surrounds them. In the prairies the grass has been 
so fine that horses and cattle have always been, and still are, 
raised with but little other food than grass, if any other, even 
during the winter; though in all the portions of Texas settled 
to any considerable extent, the range is much broken up, and 
the large stocks both of horses and cattle are removed further 
west, out of the vicinity of the farming settlements ; and as 
they are beaten back, it is the policy of the inhabitants to im- 
prove the quality of their stock, and prepare fenced pastures 
for them, which, from our mild climate and good soils, is 
destined to be a profitable business. The exuberance of rich 
pasturage here in early times gave to the cattle an enormously 
large size in bone, body and horns, with a prolificness that 
encouraged the early settlers to give much attention to raising 
cattle, and many of them to follow it as a regular business. 
They learned much of this from the Mexicans, who preceded 
them in throwing the rope in catching them, in marking and 
branding, in herding them, and in their management gen- 
erally. 

The mark and the brand of stock raisers were usually the 
only evidence of the ownership of their cattle running in the 



ii8 CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Modes of raising horses and cattle in the past and present. 

range, and the mark and brand found on an animal was the 
means by which, and often the only means by which the 
owner would know it to be his. In the spring of the year, 
those in the same section would collect together and hunt 
over the range for cattle, drive them into pens, prepared for 
the purpose, mark and brand the calves that followed their 
mothers, the brand of the cow being the test of the brand 
that was to be put on the calf. From this pen they would be 
turned out in the range, or be divided out and driven home, 
to be milked for a few months, (rather to keep them gentle 
and to attach them to a particular range, than to improve their 
milking qualities, which, indeed, was a matter but little regard- 
ed, or attended to generally). Under such a system, the cattle 
of any one stock-raiser would scatter over a wide range in a 
few years, which made it necessary to raise horses to herd 
them, and thereby, one and the same person would have in 
the same range, both stocks of horses and stocks of cattle. 
In the raising and management of horses, also, much was 
learned from the Mexicans. Twenty or thirty, or even more, 
mares would be put together in the range with a stallion, that 
would act as their keeper and protector by keeping them 
together, and by driving off from them any stray horse that 
approached them. Large jacks would perform the same office. 
Thus both horses and mules were raised for use and for sale, 
with little other attention than branding, and occasionally 
looking after the herd, to see that it did not get too far out of 
its usual range. These horses being originally like the cattle, 
mostly of the Mexican stock, have been very much improved 
by an admixture with the American stock, (as it is called) 
from other states ; so that instead of our stock of horses being 
Mexican ponies as formerly, they are often found to be large, 
fine horses ; and the same improvement has been made in 
raising mules. Our stock laws have been passed from time 
to time, founded on, and with reference to, these old customs, 
in the modes of raising stock, and which have been with more 
or less modification continued down to the present time, in all 
parts of the state where stock-raising is followed as a busi- 
ness. To the prairies of Texas, this stock business has been 
the great reserve-stay against every adversity of drouths, or 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 119 

Catching wild horses — Good horsemanship — Mexican saddle. 

of floods, in war or in peace. When the crops would fail 
from drouths, the cattle would be the fatter from the sweeter 
and more nutritious grasses, though browned into hay by the 
heat of the sun. If floods of rain came the cattle spread 
over a thousand hills, escaped the ruin that befell the farms, 
and was a standing resource to supply the wants and necessi- 
ties of the people. The cattle of Texas has flowed out, as a 
continued and continually enlarging stream of wealth to other 
states, giving evidence of the immense resources of this state. 

There are two very necessary personal accomplishments in 
the management of stock, according to the Texas plan, to wit : 
throwing the rope so as to catch animals running at full speed; 
and the other is, good horsemanship; both of which the 
Americans learned to a considerable extent from the Mexi- 
cans. To perform the first mentioned feat the person took a 
pliant rope, coiled at one end, and held it in the left hand, with 
a running noose in the other end, held in the right hand, and 
which, being whirled in a circle over the head, was thrown in 
such a manner as to let the animal sought to be caught run his 
head into the open noose end of the rope ; then, holding on to 
the other end, it was tightened upon the neck of the animal 
by degrees in such a way as to stop its career. This is a de- 
scription in its simplest mode, to which there are many vari- 
ations ; one of them is the training of the horse ridden to 
act in such a way as to throw down the animal caught, one 
end of the rope thrown being attached to the horn of the 
saddle. 

Much of the success of the extraordinary horsemanship 
depends greatly upon the construction of the saddle, and of 
the loose, easy, erect manner in which the rider sits or stands 
in it. The stirrups instead of being placed forward, as in 
the English or old American saddle, so as to act as a sort of 
support for the feet and legs, and which, if the horse falls 
down, will raise the rider one-half foot off of the saddle and 
throw him clear over the horse's head, unless he can luckily 
throw himself back before he is hoisted from the saddle, are 
placed far back in the real Mexican saddle, so as, by a change 
of position of the feet in the stirrups, the rider either sits or 
stands in the saddle, without being removed from the seat. 



I20 CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Swine, how managed with hog-dogs. 

and without changing the erect position of the body, — the 
seat being the pivot-point of the body and hmbs, to which he 
holds himself by grasping the horn of the saddle with one 
hand, if necessary, but only for the moment. In this attitude 
the rider swings his whole person to and fro, or to the right or 
left on this pivot, to suit the motion of the horse, whether he 
falls forward or backward, or pitches, like the careering of a 
vessel amidst the waves of the sea, which our young prairie 
horses of the herds are almost certain to do until they are 
well broken. This improvement in the construction of the 
saddle was, to some extent, adopted in the McClellan saddle 
of the United States army. 

Swine. 
Hogs were raised, in early times, almost entirely in the 
woods or around the farms, with little or no feed except what 
they got themselves, and in such cases the masts in the woods 
were relied on to fatten them for pork. It was necessary, 
however, to feed them, and pass about amongst them in the 
woods enough to keep them from going entirely wild, which 
they would certainly do if long neglected, particularly where 
there happened to be abundant masts, or other means of sub- 
sistence. One means of controlling them by the early set- 
tlers, and which in some places is still resorted to, was by hav- 
ing hog-dogs, regularly trained to hunt them up, and drive 
them to any place that was desired, even into the close pen 
at home. Such hogs, thus raised, roamed in gangs for mu- 
tual protection against wild varmints, such as wolves, pan- 
thers and cats ; and when, by scenting or by tracking, the dog 
would find a bunch of them, he would bark at them, or per- 
haps pounce upon a small one, whose squeal would bring to- 
gether all the rest with a noise that would give notice afar off 
of approaching aid in defense. The dog would soon lose his 
hold and retreat, so as to collect them in pursuit of him in a 
body, usually in the direction of his master, after which, he 
would run around them, barking at them, so as to keep them 
rallied together until his master should ride up near enough to 
see from the mark whether they were his or not. If one, 
more skittish than the rest, should break from the gang on his 
approach, the dog would take after it, and either catch it or head 



CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 121 

Dependence on masts for feeding swine. 

it back to the gang again, when another rally would take place. 
Hogs, thus managed, soon learned the voice of their owners, 
and the bark of his dogs ; and, unless when they became very 
wild they, when rallied, would come up grunting all around 
the horse, looking up in expectation of their usual feed of 
corn, which they were very apt to get, when the dog would 
lay down to rest at a respectful distance, until his master would 
start off and set him out in hunt of another gang of hogs. 
As good masts did not come, or " hit," as it is termed, every 
year, it was the policy to have on hand a large number of 
breeders, in different parts of the range, and when a good 
mast did come, close attention would be given them, so as to 
raise a large number of pork-hogs that year, which would be 
kept over from year to year, so as always to have some large 
hogs that would get fat enough to make pork in any year. 
It often happened that the large hogs, when the mast missed 
at one place, would be collected and driven to where there 
was mast, and there watched and attended to until they got 
fat, when they would be driven back and killed for pork. As 
the country settled up with farms, this primitive mode of 
raising meat gradually gave way in most sections of the 
country, and was supplanted by the ordinary mode of raising 
hogs around the farms, giving them the run of the pastures 
in the fall of the year, and fattening them with corn in pens 
in the winter; depending upon the masts only contingently, 
when they should be good enough to aid in raising and in 
fattening them. Since the war this mode, under the system 
of labor now prevalent in most of the cotton-growing por- 
tions of Texas, has proved a failure from want of attention, 
and from depredations upon those that are running out, that 
are fat ; and, therefore, Texas, while abounding in the means 
of raising it, is actually buying her bacon, at an immense 
outlay of money, that must be drawn from the field crops 
annually produced, and at the same time losing the benefit of 
those natural products of the country, which would aid in 
raising hogs if the matter was properly attended to. Of late 
years improved breeds have been imported into the country, 
for the purpose of raising hogs upon the system of feeding 
entirely, as practiced in older states, and, from present indica- 



122 CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

Adaptation of the country to sheep raising. 

tions, that mode is likely, under the existing circumstances, to 
supplant the others as the only one that is practicable in all the 
well-settled portions of the state. 

Sheep-raising, like wine-making, may be said to be a scien- 
tific art, where it is attempted on a large scale for profit. A 
good deal of attention has been given to it in the western por- 
tion of the state. It has been pursued with eminent success by 
the late Mr. Kendall, and by others in the elevated, rugged 
country in the mountains of the west. From their experi- 
ments, and from the character of the climate and productions 
in all that high-grazing region, between the lower edge of the 
mountains and cross-timbers, and the " Staked Plain," and 
sweeping around from Red River to the Rio Grande, we have 
an immense area pre-eminently adapted to sheep-raising, that 
will ultimately make Texas wool and mutton, rival, if not 
excel, its beef or cotton. When that vast region shall be 
settled, its beautiful rich valleys covered with farms for small 
grains, vegetables and fruits, and with pastures for improved 
stock, and its mountains and plains used as grazing grounds 
for sheep, goats, horses and cattle ; its churches and school- 
houses erected, and attended by an industrious, thrifty, health- 
ful and vigorous people; the savage Indian banished, and his 
ravages and murders forgotten, it will be one of the most de- 
lightful abodes of man on earth. 



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CHAPTER VIII. 

Modes of Travel. 



Modes of transportation and travel — past and present, — in Texas. 

Trains of pack mules, how managed. 

Wagons, and horse and ox teams, how managed. The great benefits of the ox 
teams to Texas, in cheapness of cost and expense. 

The two-horse wagons introduced since the war, and why. 

Travel on horseback, in stages, and in private carriages and buggies, — rough 
roads. 

Railroads — their extent and sudden construction, their great and varied advantages 
to Texas at present, and glowing prospects in the future. Must be the com- 
mon mode of transportation throughout the civilized world, and why. 

Steam-power and telegraph revolutionizing the industrial pursuits, and conse- 
quently the moral, social and political status of mankind, and raising them 
to a higher plane of civilization. Other anterior stages considered with their 
moving causes ; discoveries of use fo metals, gunpowder and printing press 
The mainspring of civilization developed. 

Manufactories — advantages of, and prospect of increasing, &c. 

Individual wealth — modes of honorably acquiring it in Texas heretofore and 
now. 

In the early settlement of Texas by the Mexicans, the only 
mode of transporting the commerce of the country was by 
trains of pack-mules. The mules were provided with pack- 
saddles tightly fastened upon them by girths and cruppers; 
and flour, iron, boxes or bales of dry goods, bags of silver and 
other articles were fastened upon the saddle, for which the 
mules were trained to get down upon their knees, or even 
lower. When packed they were turned loose in a drove, and 
one person going before, and another behind the drove, they 
followed each other in the road or trail. At night the mules 
were turned out to graze, and the drivers camped and kept 
watch over them by the side of the road. The " King's 
Highway," or as it was often called in eastern Texas, the 
"San Antonio Road," was the great thoroughfare through 
Texas from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, passing through 
Nacogdoches and San Antonio. It was nothing more than a 

123 



124 MODES OF TRAVEL. 

Transportation by ox teams. 

mule trail, the deep, narrow cut of which in the ground may 
yet be seen in many places in eastern, middle and western 
Texas, 

As the Americans settled in the country, this mode gradu- 
ally gave place to carts and wagons drawn by oxen, mules 
and horses, for which it became necessary to construct roads, 
ferries, and bridges. The ox teams may be said to have been 
for many years our principal mode of transportation. A team 
of two, three, and four yokes, was generally used for that 
purpose. The Mexicans tied the yokes to the horns of the 
oxen with raw-hide strings or straps, and drove the team with- 
out lines, by a " sharp stick ; " but the Americans worked the 
yokes on the neck of the oxen, confined there with bows, 
and drove the team with the call of the voice and a long 
whip, and without lines, the driver walking usually about even 
with the heads of the tongue (or rear) yoke, so as to have 
full command of the team in making them pull, or hold back, 
as one or the other might be required. There is great art in 
the good training, and management of such a team, and it is 
a noticeable fact that the best ox drivers were generally men 
sedate in their manner, and rather slow in their motion* and 
n'l^vements. These teams were both fed and grazed on the 
road, and their drivers camped out, which for the time made 
it a hard employment. The large growth of cattle in early 
times, and still in the west, has enabled us to have very fine 
ox teams at a cheap cost and small expense, which made 
them far preferable to horse and mule teams that had to be 
fed, without the advantage of grazing on the trip, and which 
required more care and attention. With the long delay in 
getting railroads, and the little reliance placed upon our rivers, 
the ox team, slow as it is, was of almost incalculable advan- 
tage to the people of Texas. Still, notwithstanding its cheap 
cost^and little expense, this mode of transportation must have 
cost the people of Texas, upon an average during its preva- 
lence, at least one-tenth or twentieth of all the produce which 
they carried to market, besides a great loss in the wear of 
teams, and in the injured health of the drivers, from the nec- 
essary hardship and exposure in such an occupation. 

The ox teams, in all sections of the state that are traversed 



MODES OF TRAVEL. 125 

Other modes of travel — rough roads. 

by railroads, are fast being abandoned, and in their stead are 
being used two-horse, or two-mule teams, the wagons for 
which have been mostly supplied to us by the north-western 
states, an immense number having been brought here 
and sold. They answer the purpose of short, fast trips, and 
suit better the changed mode of farming in connection with 
railroad transportation. 

The mode of travel in early times was entirely on horse- 
back. The inhabitants generally were so averse to walking, 
even a small distance, that it was a common observation that 
" a man would walk two miles to get a horse to ride one." In 
traveling they generally went prepared to camp out, an old 
Texan being rarely caught without his blanket for protection, 
and rope to stake out his horse. After the roads were cut 
out, and the settlements enlarged, stages and hacks were in- 
troduced, and, before the late civil war, were spread all over 
the state, in which the riding was rough and slow, and often 
very laborious, as the passenger sometimes had to pay dearly 
by working and walking on his journey. Private carriages 
and buggies were resorted to, the use of which, however, was 
much discouraged by the rough roads, as the Texas people 
never did like to work their roads, and do not yet. 

Such modes of travel are yet common in those districts of 
country where there are no railroads ; but travelers are now 
entertained at farm houses in the country, and in hotels in the 
towns. 

Our system of railroads has, as it were, leaped into exis- 
tence within the last twenty years, simply because the time 
had arrived when the states, east and north of us, having been 
supplied with them, Texas was an open field for investment 
in their progress westward and southward, — a progress that 
must continue in every direction until inland transportation is 
the common mode throughout the civilized world. 

Up to A. D. 1870, there had been but little progress in 
building railroads in Texas. They were very short routes, as 
shown by the heavy black lines in the railroad map, extend- 
ing only five hundred miles. Since that time, and up to the 
present, they have been greatly extended, and new routes 
have been constructed, (or will be by January, 1882) as indi- 



126 MODES OF TRAVEL. 

The extent and sudden construction of railroads. 

have been constructed, (or will be by January, 1882) as indi- 
cated by the crossed lines in the map. Numerous other 
charters for roads have been taken out, many of which will 
doubtless be speedily built, as indicated by the dotted lines. 
Also, charters for roads running through other parts of the 
state have been secured, which are not laid down on our map. 
It will be observed that the roads are laid off so as to connect 
the gulf coast with the railroads reaching Red River from 
Arkansas and the Indian Territory, by several routes already, 
and by others in the course of construction. These are the 
International and Great Northern, the Houston and Texas 
Central, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, and the Texas and 
St. Louis Narrow Gauge roads, with their connections. While 
these roads, for the past and present, serve greatly to carry 
the produce of Texas into markets north and north-east of 
Texas, it is only necessary for our Gulf ports to be made to 
have deep water, to convert those roads into feeders for the 
increased commerce flowing through our own ports. 

In addition to these main lines we have others leading to 
our Texas Ports; as the East Texas to Sabine Pass; the Gulf 
Colorado and Santa Fee to Galveston ; the Gulf and West 
Texas to Indianola ; the Corpus Christi and Rio Grande, 
(lately changed to Texas and Mexican Railroad) leading to 
Corpus Christi. We have at least three railroads in Texas, 
that are designed to have connections that will make them 
thoroughfares between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, upon 
the shortest and most practicable routes, during all seasons of 
the year. These are the Texas and Pacific now rapidly being 
built towards El Paso on our western border; the International 
and Great Northern now rapidly approaching Laredo on the 
Rio Grande ; the Southern Pacific (Huntingdon's road) coming 
from El Paso to meet the extension of the Galveston, Harris- 
burg and San Antonio railway. The two narrow gauge roads, 
to wit : Texas and St. Louis, and the Texas and Mexican, 
doubtless, also, are intended to form connections with roads 
going to the Pacific coast. 

Thus Texas will not only be accommodated very soon with 
railroads in all parts of the state, but she will be in the center 
of the passage of an immense commerce from the Atlantic 



MODES OF TRAVEL. 127 

The extent and sudden construction of railroads. 

erly opened, a cheaper water-transportation will be reached 
through her ports, by which the high-priced land-transporta- 
tion in going both ways across the continent will be saved. 
The fact that water-transportation is, and always will be, 
cheaper than land-transportation, will make our Texas ports be 
sought on the route half-way across the continent in going 
both ways from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. All that 
we will need to certainly secure that object are deep water on 
our bars, and facilities for handling the commerce. 

The railroads now constructed extend over most of the set- 
tled portions of the state ; and, therefore, most of its com- 
merce is being transported to and from market by railroads, 
except the large droves of cattle and horses that are driven 
on foot to market. The saving, thereby, to the annual wealth 
of the state in the diminished expense of the transportation of 
its marketable produce, must be not less than one-third, and 
perhaps one-half, of the former expense, under the ox team 
mode of transportation. This supposed estimate does not in- 
clude the advantages in the saving of time ; in the wear of 
teams ; of a quick market, in numerous articles thereby made 
marketable which were not so before ; in the general impetus 
given to production and trade of all sorts, and in the gradual 
increase of population, labor and capital. All these increased 
advantages to the country, the railroads are gradually but cer- 
tainly introducing. These and other advantages are not so 
ostensibly prominent yet as to have prevented much disap- 
pointment in the expectations of the people, as to the imme- 
diate effects of the making of railroads in this state. The 
reason of this is, that they expected too much immediate benefit 
in the enhancing the price of their lands, and in the cheap- 
ness of transportation ; not appreciating fully the fact, that 
the price of lands must, in the main, depend on the demand 
for them ; and that must depend upon the population, the 
labor and capital to profitably cultivate them ; and, also, the 
fact that railroads having been built, as an investment of cap- 
ital for profit, will not reduce the price of transportation to 
the lowest standard of which it is practically susceptible, unti 
there are enough of them in different hands to produce com- 
petition. 



I2g MODES OF TRAVEL. 

Civilizing influence of the early inventions. 

But that these advantages, whether we see and feel them 
now or not, will flow in upon us with many more not enu_ 
merated, is as certain as that a people will follow their own 
interests in prosecuting their own pursuits. For the steam en- 
gine in its application to transportation, as well as the thou- 
sand other uses to which it has already been applied, is tran- 
scendently the greatest labor-saving invention that has ever 
been made. In its broad sweep, wherever it goes, it is rev- 
olutionizing the whole face of society in its industrial pursuits, 
and, as an ultimate though necessary consequence, in its social, 
moral and political status, giving everything pertaining to it 
an impetus unknown before, and making its advent into every 
country the beginning of a new era in human affairs, ascend- 
ing upon a higher plane of civilization. Indeed, the main- 
spring of civilization is the discovery and application by man 
of the laws of the Creator, by which the animate and inani- 
mate objects of Nature are made to increase the muscular 
power of man in the performance of useful work. To ap- 
preciate the correctness of this proposition, it must be consid- 
ered that civilization has occupied three, and so far as we can 
know only three, well-defined stages above semi-barbarism. 
The first was attained by the discovery of the use of the 
metals which made man a farmer, and conferred upon him 
numerous consequent advantages over and above his previous 
wandering, tribal condition as hunter and herdsman. The 
second stage was attained by the discovery and the use of 
gunpowder, and of the printing press about the same period, 
which protected the mass of mc \ in the peaceful pursuit of 
agriculture, by the use of arms in the hands of a few, and 
allowed the great body of the people to acquire a degree of 
learning and intelligence never by them attainable before, and 
largely increased the number of those who devoted themselves 
to the cultivation of the arts, sciences, and refinements of so- 
cial life. 

The third stage was attained, or, perhaps more properly it 
may be said, is now being attained, by the discovery and ap- 
plication of the power of the steam engine, and of the tele- 
graph, which are giving to all human affairs a speed, intensi- 
ty, and compass, never before conceived to be possible ; which. 



MODES OF TRAVEL. 129 

Mainspring of civilization developed. 

in their ultimate results, will produce a phase of social organ- 
ization, not yet fully formed and developed, to a fixed deter- 
minate standard. Enough progress has, however, been made 
towards its full development to manifest some extraordinary 
changes in the previous condition of things, with their promi- 
nent tendencies ; amongst which may be enumerated the in- 
crease in the ardent pursuit of individual wealth, and the rapid 
and large accumulations of it ; the consequent demoralization 
in all the varied means of its acquisition, and the extravagant 
display of it ; the increased tendency to the co-operative ef- 
fort of labor, capital and mind in all enterprises directed to- 
wards material development, whether of a private or public 
character; and, (equally conspicuous with any other,) the 
marked tendency towards the centralization of political or- 
ganizations. Now, notwithstanding that in the breaking up 
of old ideas and habits and modes of life, and a reconstruc- 
tion of them upon another basis, many evils may follow in 
the train of events, still it is fair to conclude, that, as in each 
of the other periods of revolution that have been mentioned, 
society emerged from them on a higher plane or stage of civ- 
ilization, so it must again be the case. It is easy now to 
anticipate with certainty the vast increase of wealth, intelli- 
gence and refinement that this power will soon spread broad- 
cast over Texas, when it is contemplated that by it its mark- 
etable articles are greatly increased both in number and 
quality, and the facility of reaching the greater number of 
markets for its produce is largely increased ; and that a large 
portion of the great and growing north-west will find through 
the center of Texas on different routes an outlet to, and in- 
gress from the gulf; (the nearest salt water) and that the sev- 
eral Pacific railroads will, in a few years, open up through 
Texas the trade to and from the Pacific coast, unembarassed 
by the snows of winter; and that th^. International railroad, 
being exactly on the track of the sliortest line from the City 
of New York to the Pacific coast, and when completed, being, 
from the winds and currents of the oceans, in the very best 
line of communication by sailing vessels between western 
Asia and the United States, and western Europe, with the 
advantage of easj ^access to the gulf at the half-way passage 





130 MODES OF TRAVEL. 



Facilities for increasing manufactories. 



through the continent, and penetrating into the tropics in 
Mexico, will pour into and through Texas a rich stream of 
commerce, and open to her productions an expanse of trade 
on the value of which it is now difficult to make any approxi- 
mate calculation. 

Manufactories — A Necessity to Perfect our National 

Wealth. 

Manufactories in every country have depended largely 
upon the amount of labor and surplus capital within it, 
as well as upon the facility of transporting the manufac- 
tured articles. In all these requisites, Texas has heretofore 
been deficient ; consequently but little progress has been 
made. Still our condition in that respect is improving, and 
the cheapness of the materials and provisions here, with the 
advantages of our climate, must sooner or later invite capital 
and enterprise in that direction. 

Now that we have railroad connections with the other states, 
we can begin to contemplate the advantages of establishing 
factories in Texas, particularly for cotton-spinning, leather, 
and for the manufacture of implements of husbandry, and for 
making railroad irons. For cotton-spinning factories we have 
a population well adapted since the war, on account of the 
large number of widows and children, who could be profita- 
bly employed in such business, if we had the necessary skill, 
capital and enterprise. 

For tanning leather we have great facilities, (at least for 
making leather to be exported in a rough state) on account 
of the cheapness of hides and abundance of bark to be ob- 
tained in the clearing of farms, in the timbered sections of the 
state. Besides which, our climate will enable the process of 
tanning to be carried on during the whole year ; and we have 
an abundance of good water for the purpose. 

The railroads have already to some extent connected the 
good coal with the iron ore ; both of which abound in this 
state, inviting labor and capital to profitable employment. 

When these would be started, other connected industries 
would follow in their train, and Texas would have the benefits 
of manufacturing her own raw materials for export as well as 
home consumption. 



INDIVIDUAL WEALTH. 131 

Modes of acquiring it. 

Individual Wealth. 

As in the first chapter some views were presented, as to the 
process by which national wealth is acquired, so in conclu- 
sion it may be profitable to consider how individual wealth 
has been, and still may be, acquired in Texas. They depend 
upon very similar principles, labor being the foundation of 
both ; and both being attained by the accumulation and per- 
petuation of labor, mental or physical, fixed or piled up in 
durable shapes, so as to continue to produce values. 

It is now too often said, that the time is past to make for- 
tunes in Texas. That is a great mistake of those who have 
not well considered the principles upon which substantial for- 
tunes have been made here. Another injurious error is the 
supposition entertained, that fortunes have been made here 
by some good turn in one's private affairs, or what is called 
" good luck." It would be well for the world, perhaps, if all the 
real fruits of good luck, lotteries, swindling speculations, and 
other mere gamblmg operations could be thrown into the sea. 
Fortunes so made, apart from the demoralizing fascinations 
fraught with evil influences, are seldom permanent, under the 
homely adage, "come easy, go easy." It is a bubble as readily 
broken as blown. A fact that should discourage the wild hunt 
after such accumulations is, that there are very few men capa- 
ble of retaining property that has not been acquired in some 
regular train of honest business of utility. The pursuit of a 
train of useful business presents a reasonable certainty of suc- 
cess to every one who will intelligently and persistently follow 
it in this state, and thereby avoid the numerous civil and 
criminal pitfalls of creeping chance, and vaulting luck. 
It is in such regular train of business that fortunes have gen- 
erally been made in Texas, and so they will generally be 
made, whferever made and kept permanently. 

As national wealth cannot arrive to any great magnitude 
by the labor of one generation, so individual wealth of great 
magnitude cannot be acquired by the labor, physical or in- 
tellectual, of one man, without the labor of others being add- 
ed thereto, in the course of even a long life-time. 

It is an easy matter for any young man, by reasonable in- 
dustry and economy, to acquire a home in Texas and improve 



132 INDIVIDUAL WEALTH. 

Modes of acquiring it. 

it so as to acquire an independent living, rear a family, give 
them an ordinary education, and start his children in the 
world with advantages equal to his own, if not better. But 
suppose he should have an ambition to acquire a fortune be- 
yond the condition of an independent citizen, living in his 
own home, by the sweat of his brow, then he must get up a 
train of business that will give him the advantage of the la- 
bor of others as well as of himself. 

The problem is, how may this be done honorably, and 
without injustice to any one- This may be well illustrated 
by a few examples. There was a young man settled in a town 
in eastern Texas as a merchant, over forty years ago. He had 
a small capital, good business capacity, and great energy and 
foresight. He bought on a credit in New Orleans about ten 
thousand dollars worth of goods, and sold them out. The 
monetary crash came, and he could not collect the money. 
He converted his debts into land certificates, and had them 
well located, making his lands cost him less than twenty-five 
cents per acre. As immigrants came in, he sold at one dollar 
per acre, parts of his large tracts, and re-invested in other 
locations further out. Settlements were formed about and 
around his lands unsold, and then he got two, three, and finally 
five dollars per acre for his lands. In thirty-five years he was 
worth more than one-half a million of dollars. He had 
acquired this large amount while preserving the most honor- 
able deportment in all of his transactions, and without hard 
exactions or litigation. It was by the simple process of get- 
ting the benefit of other person's labor in building up their 
own farms, and in making neighborhoods with churches and 
school-houses, around his own lands ; thereby adding an in- 
creased value to his lands, as they increased that of their own. 
It was generally supposed that he was a good trader, whereas, 
in fact, he mere.y put himself in and persistently followed a 
legitimate train of business, and instead of oppressing any 
one by unreasonable exactions, and hard bargains, was an ad- 
vantage to thousands of people by his liberal indulgence 
when necessary. 

A similar result was attained by a professional man who 
settled in a town in Texas over thirty-five years ago ; who in- 



INDIVIDUAL W EALTH. 133 

Modes of acquiring it. 

vested his surplus gains in lots and lands in and about the 
town. It is now a cit}', and he is a rich man, — made so, 
main.'y by the brick and mortar put up on adjoining lots, or 
on those he sold off, by which the value of those retained 
has been increased. 

Another more common case is that of a young man who 
came to Texas thirty-nine years ago with but little education, 
and no capacity for enterprise of any sort, except honesty, 
industry and economy. He hired himself to work by the 
month, and in a few years he had a good little farm on which 
he lived, and made a respectable living for himself and family, 
until his boys were able to add their labor to his. That gave 
him the idea of accumulation by the labor oif others besides 
his own, and he acted on it. He is now the possessor of a 
large farm, and is one of the be.st and most thrifty farmers in 
his section of the state, and has been enabled to do a far bet- 
ter part by his children, than if they had grown up in idleness, 
or without a purpose. Yet that man, though in good circum- 
stances, and respected by all of his neighbors as a good man 
and a good citizen, will go to one of his more learned neigh- 
bors to write a note for him, unless one of his children hap- 
pens to be on hand to write it. 

So it is in the trades and professions, as well as in agricul- 
ture, that the labor of others may benefit you in a legitimate 
business, while it is equally beneficial to them. 

While, therefore, simple independence by one's own labor 
is and should be regarded as the honorable position of the 
Texan citizen, to which any good man may easily attain, an 
honorable road to fortune lies open to any one whose am- 
bition leads in that direction, to his own and the public 
benefit. 




MAl'N? 1 



RA/LROADS COMPLETED JAN. I'J 1810 - 



JULY 1881 iiii Miiii i i i i iiii inH'ii ii i ii i ii i iii i iii 'i i'i ' iii . 
IN COURSE OF C ONSTR UCTION 



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